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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of displays depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to