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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, visiting the same church and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they wished to keep. They chose a section on the west edge, close to where a villager managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number people (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to