Major Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Tiny Settlement Separated in Two by the Cold War

An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the identical church and sending their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of structure they wanted to keep. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained together with a series of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to