Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Period

An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never both, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to