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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their history. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, going to the same church and sending their kids to the very same school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were required to present identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to