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An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the same tavern, attending the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays showing the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to