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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 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 wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, visiting the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of displays showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to