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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical pub, attending the same church and placing their kids to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, setting up their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls tightened they were required to display identity papers, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number people (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. About 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

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

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to