Serious Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Tiny Hamlet Separated in Half by the Cold War Era

An creek so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals socializing in the same inn, attending the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a series of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to