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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical church and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to