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An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals socializing in the very same pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted early on about how much wall they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the two, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big car park – is likely to