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A brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back across the stream. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to