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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the same inn, visiting the same church and sending their kids to the identical school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they occupied the complete community, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the western edge, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits showing the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big car park – is probable to