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An brook so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their history. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the same inn, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were required to display identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more people (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to