Serious Trouble in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Hamlet Split in Two by the Cold War Period

A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the same pub, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the western edge, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays showing the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large car park – is expected to