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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the very same inn, attending the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identification, although each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the two, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to