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A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet split a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their past. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the same religious building and sending their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked early on about how much wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are preserved together with a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to