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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart 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 East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are conserved together with a collection of displays illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is likely to