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A stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their history. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the same inn, attending the same church and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to display ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to care for their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but never both, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to