Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Small Village Divided in Half by the Cold War

An brook so low you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They chose a section on the western perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are preserved together with a set of displays showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we walk, the director details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is likely to