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A brook so shallow you barely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals socializing in the identical inn, visiting the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15,000 came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is likely to