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

A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, creating their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we move, the director details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over two times more persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is expected to