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An brook so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the same pub, attending the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much structure they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to