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An stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, although all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Evolutions

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