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An creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, attending the same place of worship and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were required to show identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over double the number people (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to