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An creek so low you barely got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present ID, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western edge, near where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is likely to