Big Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Small Settlement Divided in Two by the Cold War Era

A brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical tavern, attending the same church and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the west perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than double the number people (well over 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to