Serious Problems in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Village Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

An creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15k came to see each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big car park – is expected to