🔗 Share this article Big Problems in ‘Tiny Berlin’: The Small Village Separated in Half by the Cold War Era An stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin. Preserving History Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.” “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.” Bygone Context Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the identical learning center. Post-War Split Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, although all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark. Intensification of Border Restrictions After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”. Exhibition Center Development I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was heavily reinforced. Preserved Buildings Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty. Broader Context The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed. Hamlet Existence Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies. Interest For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister. 25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused new interest. Modern Developments The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to