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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to