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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the same inn, going to the identical church and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to present ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to care for their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is probable to