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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers started memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same religious building and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the complete community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but over two times more persons (more than 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to