Big Problems in ‘Little Berlin’: The Small Village Split in Two by the Cold War Era

An stream so low you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration 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 was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, attending the very same church and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to