Big Problems in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Village Separated in Half by the Cold War Period

A stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same church and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identification, although each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to