Serious Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Minuscule Hamlet Separated in Half by the Cold War Era

A stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete community, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present ID, even though all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to