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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, attending the very same church and sending their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to