Major Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: This Minuscule Village Split in Half by the Cold War Era
A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.
Commemorating Historical Events
Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Telling the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”
“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”
Bygone Origins
Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents gathering in the identical inn, going to the very same church and placing their kids to the identical learning center.
After the War Division
Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete community, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.
Escalation of Border Restrictions
Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.
Exhibition Center Development
I heard narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, close to where a villager managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.
Conserved Installations
2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.
Larger Background
The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.
Village Life
Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern explains.
Tourism
For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.
25 years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.
Current Changes
The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to