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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the identical inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to display ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

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

Present-Day Changes

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