Serious Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Small Village Divided in Two by the Cold War
A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.
Memorialising Historical Events
A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their history. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”
“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”
Historical Context
Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, going to the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same school.
After the War Split
Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.
Intensification of Boundary Controls
After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.
Exhibition Center Development
It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.
Preserved Installations
Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.
Broader Context
The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.
Village Life
The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.
Visitors
For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.
Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.
Current Evolutions
The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to
