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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical inn, attending the same religious building and sending their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the entire community, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to