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An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals socializing in the identical pub, visiting the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, close to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to