Serious Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Tiny Village Divided in Half by the Cold War Era
An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.
Memorialising History
Months after their own division was breached, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”
“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”
Historical Origins
Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.
Following WWII Division
Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present ID, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.
Escalation of Frontier Controls
Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.
Museum Development
It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was significantly fortified.
Preserved Buildings
Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.
Larger Context
The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.
Village Life
Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.
Interest
For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.
Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.
Modern Developments
The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large car park – is likely to
