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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the very same pub, visiting the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the two, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to