Serious Problems in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Hamlet Separated in Half by the Cold War Period

A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back across the stream. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were required to display ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are preserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never the two, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is probable to