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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, 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 demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to