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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, visiting the very same religious building and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display ID, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never both, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than twice as many individuals (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to