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An stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they took over the complete community, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to display identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to