Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Hamlet Split in Two by the Cold War Era

A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the very same pub, visiting the identical church and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to keep. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large car park – is likely to