Big Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Small Village Split in Two by the Cold War Period

A creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but more than double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to