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An brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the western edge, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a set of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to