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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the same pub, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show ID, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two observation towers are preserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is expected to