Major Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Split in Two by the Cold War Era

A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to show identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the western fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big car park – is likely to