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An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, attending the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to