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A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, visiting the same place of worship and placing their children to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but never both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over double the number people (well over 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to