Major Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Minuscule Hamlet Divided in Two by the Cold War Period

An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents set about memorialising their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their children to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, creating their command 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 withdraw back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of displays depicting the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over double the number people (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big car park – is likely to