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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and placing their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identity papers, even though each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western edge, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to