Major Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Village Separated in Two by the Cold War

A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical inn, attending the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the very same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars 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, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is expected to