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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, attending the same church and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over twice as many persons (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large car park – is probable to