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A brook so low you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, attending the very same church and placing their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the entire community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, close to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to