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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began memorialising their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the identical pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to show ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over double the number people (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to