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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, visiting the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat across the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life developing it. Locals were polled early on about how much structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to