Major Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Hamlet Separated in Half by the Cold War Era

An stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a series of displays showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over two times more persons (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big car park – is probable to