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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the same pub, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the west fringe, near where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is expected to