Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Tiny Hamlet Divided in Half by the Cold War Period

An brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, visiting the same church and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to show identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is expected to