Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Minuscule Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War
An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.
Memorialising Historical Events
Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”
“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”
Historical Background
Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the same inn, visiting the very same church and placing their kids to the same school.
Post-War Separation
Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were required to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.
Increase of Border Restrictions
Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who said her “good new year”.
Museum Development
I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.
Maintained Buildings
Two observation towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the village’s history. As we move, the director lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.
Larger Context
The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.
Community Life
The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.
Interest
For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.
Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.
Present-Day Developments
The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is likely to
