Serious Problems in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Tiny Village Separated in Two by the Cold War Period

An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the identical inn, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire village, creating their control center in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display ID, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to