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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big car park – is probable to