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A brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their past. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the same tavern, going to the very same church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the complete community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is likely to