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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete community, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to