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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their heritage. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, visiting the same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the whole community, creating their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to