Major Problems in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Small Village Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the very same tavern, attending the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the entire village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to