Big Difficulties in ‘Miniature Berlin’: This Tiny Settlement Split in Half by the Cold War

A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to