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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical pub, attending the same place of worship and sending their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to display ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the west edge, close to where a villager managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to