Big Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: The Minuscule Hamlet Separated in Two by the Cold War Period

A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, going to the identical church and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the two, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is expected to