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An creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical pub, going to the same religious building and placing their kids to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to display ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were polled early on about how much barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s history. As we move, the director lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is likely to