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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals 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 span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the same church and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire community, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant moments in the village’s history. As we move, the director details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number people (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to