Major Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Tiny Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the very same inn, attending the very same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were required to show identity papers, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the western perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of displays depicting the most impactful events in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to look after their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over twice as many people (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to see each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to