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An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents gathering in the identical pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to look after their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to