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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their past. The project 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 federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked early on about how much barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to