Big Trouble in ‘Miniature Berlin’: The Small Village Divided in Half by the Cold War Period
A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.
Preserving History
A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”
“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”
Historical Origins
Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the same school.
After the War Division
Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.
Increase of Border Controls
Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “happy new year”.
Heritage Site Establishment
It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They chose a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially strengthened.
Maintained Structures
Two observation towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.
Larger Background
The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over two times more people (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.
Village Life
Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.
Visitors
For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.
Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.
Present-Day Developments
The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large car park – is expected to
