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An creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their past. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the same pub, going to the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is expected to