Major Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Settlement Separated in Two by the Cold War

A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers started commemorating their history. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the very same inn, going to the same church and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the complete community, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were required to display identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to