Serious Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Small Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same church and sending their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to display ID, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is expected to