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A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical inn, going to the very same place of worship and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, creating their command in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15,000 came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large car park – is probable to