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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the same inn, going to the identical religious building and sending their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole hamlet, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to pull back across the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the west edge, near where a villager was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a series of displays depicting the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

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