Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Minuscule Hamlet Split in Half by the Cold War Period

A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, attending the same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the west fringe, near where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, lest they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to