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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the very same inn, visiting the same church and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large car park – is probable to