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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same pub, visiting the very same church and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to