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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same pub, visiting the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identification, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of displays showing the most significant events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15k visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to