Major Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Small Village Split in Two by the Cold War Era

An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the same tavern, going to the very same church and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the entire community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to present ID, although all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big car park – is expected to