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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a series of tableaux showing the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big car park – is probable to