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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat across the stream. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to care for their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is probable to