Major Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the same tavern, going to the identical church and sending their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to