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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core 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 border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to see every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to