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An creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the very same inn, going to the very same religious building and sending their children to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to