Major Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Hamlet Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

A brook so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same place of worship and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is probable to