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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a series of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we move, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to