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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the very same pub, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to show identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked early on about how much structure they desired to keep. They chose a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to