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An creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the identical pub, visiting the identical religious building and sending their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is likely to