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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition 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 beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to