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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same inn, going to the same church and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of displays showing the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Present-Day Changes

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