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

An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, 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 the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical inn, visiting the identical church and enrolling their children to the same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show identification, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of displays depicting the most significant events in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to