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A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, attending the very same religious building and sending their children to the very same school.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, creating their control center in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western edge, close to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is likely to