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A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents socializing in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and sending their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is likely to