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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big car park – is likely to