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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same tavern, attending the very same religious building and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays depicting the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to