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An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, visiting the very same church and enrolling their children to the very same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to display ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is probable to