Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Small Village Separated in Two by the Cold War Period

An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the identical inn, visiting the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About 15k visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to