Big Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Tiny Hamlet Separated in Two by the Cold War

An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, attending the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see annually, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big parking lot – is likely to