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An brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their history. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole village, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was substantially fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to