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A stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, attending the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire community, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to present ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to keep. They selected a section on the western edge, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is likely to