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An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the very same pub, visiting the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Residents were consulted early on about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the western fringe, close to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Changes

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