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A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their past. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big car park – is likely to