Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: This Tiny Settlement Separated in Two by the Cold War Era

An stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their history. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, going to the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to