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An stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and sending their young ones to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the whole community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life building it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a villager was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Structures

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big car park – is probable to