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A brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were obliged to display identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but never both, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

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