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An creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Division

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories 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 much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. About 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is probable to