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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the same religious building and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) died trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is likely to