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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, going to the same church and placing their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we move, the director details the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited each year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is likely to