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A brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their history. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same inn, visiting the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not both, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About 15k visited every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is expected to