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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration 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 beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, attending the identical place of worship and sending their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to