Major Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Small Village Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

An brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their history. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, going to the very same church and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, although each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the west fringe, near where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, 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 two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to