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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their control center in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to