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A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western edge, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never both, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is expected to