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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, attending the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identity papers, even though all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to