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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center 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 marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the same pub, attending the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to