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A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began commemorating their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the same inn, going to the very same place of worship and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, close to where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to