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A brook so low you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the very same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole village, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to