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An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their history. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, going to the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to