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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the same pub, attending the very same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant moments in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to