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A creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to show ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to