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An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to present identification, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to