Big Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: This Tiny Hamlet Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

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

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the very same church and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the western fringe, close to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never the two, in case they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to