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An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents gathering in the very same inn, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat across the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to