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An stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began commemorating their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, going to the same place of worship and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the complete village, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to