Serious Difficulties in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Village Divided in Two by the Cold War
A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.
Commemorating History
Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began commemorating their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”
“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”
Bygone Origins
Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the very same pub, going to the identical place of worship and placing their children to the same educational institution.
Post-War Division
Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.
Intensification of Frontier Restrictions
Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.
Exhibition Center Creation
It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.
Preserved Installations
A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.
Larger Background
The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.
Village Life
The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.
Interest
For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.
Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.
Modern Developments
The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to
