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

A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most significant events in the village’s history. As we move, the director lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to