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A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical church and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, setting up their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to