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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

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 about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their young ones to the same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They chose a section on the west edge, near where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is probable to