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A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large car park – is expected to