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A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

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

Bygone Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, attending the same church and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over double the number people (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to