Serious Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Separated in Half by the Cold War Era
A stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.
Preserving the Past
Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”
“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”
Past Context
Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the identical inn, going to the very same church and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.
After the War Division
Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.
Increase of Boundary Restrictions
Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.
Museum Development
I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the western edge, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially strengthened.
Preserved Buildings
A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.
Wider Background
The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.
Village Existence
Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.
Interest
For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see each year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.
Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.
Current Developments
The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to