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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

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

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted early on about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their crops; the partner could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to