🔗 Share this article Serious Difficulties in ‘Tiny Berlin’: This Tiny Settlement Divided in Two by the Cold War An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin. Memorialising Historical Events Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their history. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.” “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.” Historical Context Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and placing their children to the very same learning center. Post-War Division Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at night. Increase of Frontier Measures Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”. Heritage Site Establishment It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of wall they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the west edge, close to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced. Maintained Structures 2 guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard. Broader Context The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed. Village Daily Living The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies. Visitors For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head. Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention. Current Developments The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to