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An creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, 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 display was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals drinking in the same tavern, visiting the identical church and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete community, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not both, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to