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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the same tavern, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identification, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to