Serious Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Hamlet Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is expected to