Major Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Minuscule Hamlet Split in Half by the Cold War Period

An stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the same church and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to