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A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, close to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to