Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Tiny Hamlet Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

A stream so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, visiting the very same religious building and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were required to present identification, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, near where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but not the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to