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

A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals drinking in the same tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his working life building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a set of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About 15,000 came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is probable to