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An creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, visiting the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire village, creating their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved together with a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to