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

A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the same tavern, attending the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to care for their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

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

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is probable to