Big Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Settlement Divided in Two by the Cold War

An creek so low you barely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identification, although everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than twice as many people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to