Major Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Small Hamlet Separated in Half by the Cold War Period

A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their history. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large car park – is probable to