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A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how much wall they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

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