Major Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Tiny Settlement Split in Half by the Cold War Period

A stream so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, visiting the very same church and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete community, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly 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 broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to