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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the very same church and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, setting up their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his working life building it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the west fringe, close to where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is likely to