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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the western edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to