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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers set about commemorating their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the very same church and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were consulted early on about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are maintained together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, the director lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is expected to