Serious Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: This Minuscule Hamlet Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the same pub, going to the very same church and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to display ID, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to maintain. They selected a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a set of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to