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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, going to the identical church and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a series of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to