Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Small Settlement Divided in Half by the Cold War Era

An brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identity papers, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western edge, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to