Big Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Minuscule Settlement Divided in Two by the Cold War Era
A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.
Preserving History
A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”
“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”
Historical Origins
Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same educational institution.
Following WWII Split
Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, creating their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.
Intensification of Border Measures
After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.
Heritage Site Establishment
I heard narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily strengthened.
Conserved Installations
A pair of guard towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the two, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.
Larger Background
The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.
Community Life
The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.
Visitors
For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.
25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.
Modern Evolutions
The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to
