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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the same inn, attending the same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, near where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is likely to