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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, going to the same church and placing their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present identification, although all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is likely to