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An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was breached, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the identical inn, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not both, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many individuals (well over 300) died attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to