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An brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, visiting the very same religious building and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, near where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a set of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is likely to