Serious Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: The Minuscule Settlement Split in Half by the Cold War Era

An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They selected a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their crops; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to see each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large car park – is expected to