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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, attending the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is expected to