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An brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, going to the same church and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, creating their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present identification, even though all understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to