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An creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to show ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a series of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to