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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives including these incidents 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 much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to