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An brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started memorialising their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the complete village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show ID, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is expected to