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A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the brook. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to show identity papers, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to