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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Bygone Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to show identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we stroll, the director details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never both, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number people (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. About 15k came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to