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An stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, attending the same church and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to show ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to