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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall 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 exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, attending the same place of worship and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were consulted early on about how much structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved together with a series of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over two times more persons (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to