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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals socializing in the same pub, visiting the very same religious building and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to display ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a series of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but not the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to