Big Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Hamlet Split in Two by the Cold War Period

An stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their past. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, visiting the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k visited every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to