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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, attending the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the western fringe, near where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

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