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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and placing their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls became stricter they were required to present identification, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west edge, near where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to