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A brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the same place of worship and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how much structure they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to