Major Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Minuscule Hamlet Divided in Half by the Cold War

An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the west edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not both, in case they tried to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is probable to