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A stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same tavern, attending the identical church and sending their kids to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are preserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we move, the director lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large car park – is likely to