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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, visiting the identical church and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over two times more persons (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to