Major Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Settlement Separated in Half by the Cold War Era

An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a village for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to care for their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Modern Evolutions

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