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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the same tavern, attending the identical church and placing their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identity papers, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not both, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15k visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to