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A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to