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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to