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An brook so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their history. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much structure they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a set of displays showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never the two, lest they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to