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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their history. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is expected to