Big Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: This Minuscule Village Split in Half by the Cold War Era

An brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core 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 border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, attending the very same religious building and sending their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to