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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same inn, visiting the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to display ID, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Developments

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