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An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the very same inn, visiting the very same religious building and placing their children to the very same school.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the whole community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were required to display identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most significant events in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but never the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is likely to