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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

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

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the whole community, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to present identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is likely to