Major Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Tiny Village Divided in Two by the Cold War Era

An brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was breached, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began commemorating their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents socializing in the same tavern, attending the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to display ID, although each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to