Big Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Small Settlement Split in Half by the Cold War Period

An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same inn, visiting the very same church and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to show identification, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is expected to