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An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show ID, although all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, close to where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are maintained together with a set of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

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