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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: 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 formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the same inn, attending the identical religious building and placing their children to the very same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to display identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to