Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Small Settlement Separated in Two by the Cold War Period

A stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, 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. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same pub, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to display identification, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is probable to