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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started memorialising their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the identical pub, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identification, although all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the west edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big car park – is likely to