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A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identity papers, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big car park – is expected to