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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, attending the same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to display ID, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is probable to