Major Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Period

An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to