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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical pub, visiting the very same religious building and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the complete community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they desired to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is likely to