Big Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Tiny Village Split in Two by the Cold War Era

An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began memorialising their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the same pub, visiting the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat across the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

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

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to