Major Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Small Settlement Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents gathering in the identical inn, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where a villager managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. 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 TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to