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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identity papers, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the western edge, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their produce; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to