Major Trouble in ‘Little Berlin’: This Small Hamlet Split in Two by the Cold War

A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to