Major Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Tiny Village Divided in Two by the Cold War Era
An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.
Preserving Historical Events
Months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”
“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”
Bygone Background
Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.
After the War Division
Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to present identification, although all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.
Escalation of Boundary Restrictions
Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.
Exhibition Center Establishment
It was related to me accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.
Preserved Structures
Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.
Broader Context
The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.
Hamlet Existence
Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.
Visitors
For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.
Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.
Current Changes
The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to
