Major Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Minuscule Settlement Split in Half by the Cold War

An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, attending the same religious building and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to