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A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the same church and sending their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire village, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were required to present identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how much barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to