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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the identical inn, visiting the identical religious building and placing their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a series of displays showing the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to