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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, going to the same religious building and placing their kids to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to