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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same inn, going to the identical church and sending their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to display ID, although each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful events in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to