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An creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, going to the very same religious building and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is probable to