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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their history. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the same church and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but over twice as many people (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is probable to