Serious Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: The Minuscule Village Divided in Two by the Cold War

A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, attending the same place of worship and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identification, although all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life developing it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to care for their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but not both, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to