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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet split a village for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers started documenting their history. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the very same inn, going to the same place of worship and sending their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to