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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration 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 beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the same tavern, going to the identical church and sending their kids to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the west edge, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15,000 came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to