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An brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to display ID, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we walk, the director details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over two times more persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to