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An stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to display identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to