Serious Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: This Tiny Village Split in Two by the Cold War

A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the same tavern, visiting the very same church and placing their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the western edge, near where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but never both, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to