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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to