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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the identical inn, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole village, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to pull back across the brook. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of displays depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big car park – is likely to