Big Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: This Small Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War

A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the identical pub, attending the very same church and placing their children to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over two times more people (more than 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to