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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is expected to