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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the very same school.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they took over the complete community, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a series of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. 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 broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Modern Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to