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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their history. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the same inn, visiting the same church and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back across the brook. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western edge, near where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a set of displays depicting the most significant events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is probable to