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

A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to present ID, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to