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An brook so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, going to the identical church and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to show ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western edge, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to