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A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the identical inn, going to the identical church and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to