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

An brook so low you barely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the same church and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete village, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we move, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large vehicle area – is probable to