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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the same religious building and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is probable to