Serious Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Split in Two by the Cold War

A creek so low you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, going to the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to present ID, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big car park – is expected to