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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, attending the same church and sending their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to show ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to