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A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same church and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to show ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much structure they desired to preserve. They selected a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never both, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

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