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An creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, attending the very same church and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to