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A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the very same pub, visiting the very same church and sending their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, creating their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much barrier they wished to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but more than twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large car park – is likely to