Serious Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Village Split in Two by the Cold War Era
An stream so low you barely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.
Commemorating the Past
Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about documenting their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”
“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”
Historical Background
Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same pub, going to the identical place of worship and sending their young ones to the same learning center.
Post-War Division
Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show ID, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.
Intensification of Boundary Restrictions
Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.
Museum Establishment
It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.
Preserved Buildings
Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.
Wider Background
The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.
Village Daily Living
Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.
Interest
For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.
Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.
Modern Changes
The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big car park – is probable to
