Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
'Little Berlin': The Divided Village of Mödlareuth
64 Plays12 days ago
Episode twenty-six of the new series of Pieces of History takes us to one of the most strikingly symbolic places in Cold War Europe: Mödlareuth - the tiny village once known as “Little Berlin.” With only a few dozen residents, this quiet rural community found itself split by a concrete wall after 1945, becoming an unexpected microcosm of division and ideology.
Joining me is historian Susan Berger, whose work focuses on the lived experiences of ordinary people shaped by major political events. Susan guides us through Mödlareuth’s past: what the village was like before the division, why such a small place ended up walled off, and how the emotional shock of separation transformed daily life.
Drawing on local records, oral histories, and the memories of those who lived on either side, we explore how East and West Germany treated the people of Mödlareuth, what surprised Susan most in her research, and how personal stories from the village help us understand the broader Cold War landscape.
Together, we reflect on how to balance grand historical narratives with intimate human experiences - and what Mödlareuth ultimately teaches us about borders, identity, and the communities shaped by division.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
Facebook: Pieces of History podcast
Instagram: @pieceofhistorypod
Museum Modlareuth - https://www.moedlareuth.de/en/
Recommended
Transcript
Mödlareuth: Little Berlin's Cold War Tale
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pieces of History, I'm Colin McGrath. Today travelling to one of the smallest yet most symbolically powerful places in Cold War Europe, the tiny village of Modlalright, a community divided by a concrete wall that cut through fields, families and everyday life.
00:00:31
Speaker
Known as Little Berlin, this rural settlement became an unlikely front line in the ideological struggle between East and West Germany.
Uncovering Mödlareuth's Hidden Stories with Historian Susan Berger
00:00:40
Speaker
Joining me is historian Susan Berger, whose research uncovers how the small village came to embody the wider tensions of the Cold War.
00:00:48
Speaker
Through personal stories, local records and the memories of those who lived on either side of the wall, Susan reveals how Maud Lothroth became both the symbol of division and a testament to resilience.
00:01:00
Speaker
In this episode, we explore what the village was like before the split, how the wall reshaped the lives of its residents, and what the story of Möller-Räuth can teach us about borders, memory and the human impact of political decisions.
00:01:14
Speaker
I hope you enjoy. so Susan, thanks very much for joining me. um I really appreciate it. Before we talk about Möller-Räuth or a Little Berlin, ah could you tell listeners a little bit about yourself and what first interested you in this village and its history?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, so um this year I turned 40, was born in 1985 and always I had a huge interest in history. It got to the point where I actually studied history at the university, but still was not concentrated on Cold War history, but the days before.
00:01:52
Speaker
And then if you study humanities in Germany, it's always good if you do internships so that you can get a job more easy afterwards. And I was thinking, oh, where should I apply? And I don't know anything. And then my mother suggested Mödler Reut. And I said, huh, what's Mödler Reut? I had never heard about it before. I have to be honest, and which is only about...
00:02:15
Speaker
maybe 20 kilometers on the road away from my home village. But I was always more drawn in the other direction where my school was. So I didn't know about the place. Applied and they took me and then I kind of, I don't know if if falling in love is is the right term, but it really grabbed me the whole ah history of the divided village. And then I found parallels to my own family history because the village where I come from it was not separated like Möttlerreuth but it was situated right next to the inner German border as well and my family was separated on both sides and it always played a role in the stories back home. It kind of was like a match made in heaven for me to be able to work here.
Life Before Division: Mödlareuth's Unified Community
00:03:08
Speaker
For listeners who don't necessarily know the town, again, I wasn't aware of it until about three weeks ago when I read an article about the opening of the new museum and it looks fantastic. Can you give um the listeners a description of Moodleroyt itself? Could you describe the village before the division and what kind of place it was?
00:03:26
Speaker
yeah So Mötlaerreuth was a very rural, small village. And since around 1800, it had a district border running through its territory. Beforehand, the border had changed, swapped places.
00:03:44
Speaker
But... um yeah Yeah, since then ah we had the district border inside the village, but it didn't affect life here very much. um Two examples of how close relations were. People went to church together in the Bavarian part or not in the Bavarian part of the village, but in the next Bavarian village.
00:04:04
Speaker
And in the Syringian part of Mödlareuth, they built a small school for all the pupils from both sides to attend. And of course they had the same festivities being of the same parish or how do you call it? the Same church? Same parish.
00:04:22
Speaker
They also had a thing called Hutzenstube, which means like a room to sit together in and do handiwork sing and dance for the youth.
00:04:34
Speaker
And it was all very communal here. People just like in my family could marry over the border to the other side. um They could start a work on the other side or purchase land or forest.
00:04:48
Speaker
And all of that only then changed because Germany had started starteded World War II and yeah also Mödler-Reuth had to face the consequences.
The Cold War Divide: American and Soviet Zones
00:04:58
Speaker
How... Did it then end up being divided into two German states? Because we had this old district border inside the village. When the anti-Hitler coalition, the Allies, um talked about what should happen with Germany after a defeat and how they should ah rule the country and occupy the country afterwards, They did some conferences, you might know and your listeners might also know, and the Conference of Teheran, the Conference of Yalta, and then at the end of the war, the Potsdam Conference, in which it was decided first to um
00:05:41
Speaker
make Germany smaller and use the borders, old borders of 1937, and then also to make different occupation zones. And of course, our border, ah or our border, which was much older, also then came into play. And that's why the village, even though it was very small, was divided into the two occupation zones of the Americans and the Soviets, and then afterwards became part of the two German states.
00:06:09
Speaker
How many people roughly lived in the village? was it It wasn't large by any means. No, it was not a huge village, maybe 100 to 120 people. And of course, at the end of the war, there was also a huge wave of refugees and people expelled from former eastern provinces.
00:06:28
Speaker
So that maybe there were even 20 people more that were put into spare rooms if there was some place they could stay. but never more than 150 people. Yeah. And is the if I read this right, is the dividing line the stream that went through the village, that correct?
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, right. We have a little a stream, a little creek called the Tanbach. And in almost all of the village, it marks the border. Well, actually, the border jumps from one side of the creek to the other. But um to have it as a marker and more easily understandable, we say the the creek marks the border.
00:07:07
Speaker
So many people know about the Berlin Wall itself, but not the wall within the village. So could you explain, if we jump forward a decade or two, why the village was divided after 1945 and how it became a symbol of the Cold War between East and West?
Border Control: East Germany's Response
00:07:22
Speaker
yeah Well, um development here in Mödlareuth actually was a little different than on the longer, not populated stretches of the inter-German border. But of course, the Soviets and the East German state, they started doing border controls already the And in 1952, there was actually um a law but by the GDR ah government to actually close off the border to the West and only like a dozen crossings were left open for people to travel in between the two German states, but also in between West Germany and West Berlin, where people had to transit through the GDR.
00:08:03
Speaker
And why was that necessary? Well, first and foremost, of course, because, again, huge wave of people who were trying to get out of the East, first of the Soviet occupation zone, then out of the GDR, because... um The restructuring and changing of society started right at the end of the war in our all parts of Germany.
00:08:27
Speaker
But of course, the Soviets had a different policy than the Western powers. Already in April of 1946, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany was founded, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei.
00:08:39
Speaker
the one that then led the country in a dictatorship for over four decades and already in those early years especially social democrats who didn't want to go into this unity party they were kind of ah rumors were spread or stuff was controlled constructed so they could be put in front of a judge and also there was and expropriation of course of factories that had in someha in some way participated in the war effort but also big agricultural goods they were broken up everything that was larger than 100 hectares
00:09:23
Speaker
And a lot of people didn't want to live under the system that was established, especially with all the propaganda that also started already in those early days.
00:09:33
Speaker
And first, they only ah had a police decree to stop people from crossing the border. But of course, if you were desperate, they wouldn't stop you. You would still try to get over to the Western.
00:09:45
Speaker
And in 1955, first fence was erected all along the inner German border made out of barbed wire to have a blockage, a barrier of some sort.
00:09:58
Speaker
Here in Mödler-Reuth, it already started in 1952, the year of the police decree. And we got a um yeah very high... had high wooden fence that was not only meant as a barrier but also as a blockage of view.
00:10:14
Speaker
This wooden fence then of course over the years did deteriorated little. So at the end of the fifty s we then also got a barbed wire fence which was then similar to the outside of the village.
00:10:29
Speaker
In 1961, the year in which the Berlin Wall was began being constructed, also at the inter-German border, there was a new stage of fortifications. It was the year when the first ground mines were displayed or ah were started to being used, in which new fences, double road fence was constructed to have even more barriers This we didn't do here in the village. Instead, we then in 1964 got a first kind of wall made out of wooden and concrete segments. And in 1966, the concrete wall was built, 3.30 meters high, 700 meters long, out of which still roughly 100 meters are still in the it existence here in the museum.
Reunion: Post-1989 Reconnecting of Residents
00:11:21
Speaker
I think sometimes we we kind of look at those these historic events that have happened. We think about you know the politicians and the main events and on whatnot. We forget about the people who lived on the ground. So for the ordinary villagers, what was life like during the 90s and 50s and 60s? Were they still able to kind of bypass from one side to the wall to the other? was there as we see in Berlin, like the large guard towers with their doors on leads and things that you kind of assume. but was that in the village or were they just passing back and forth is easily enough?
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, of course, um there had been control starting in 1945 already by Allied troops. In 1946, they started using German police units as well to help them because they just weren't able to do that along a 1,400 kilometer long border.
00:12:11
Speaker
And Berlin is not counted in that. In the beginning, not everything was as tight as it was in the 80s, of course. It was a system being established. It was manned by German policemen who had maybe just also fought in the war, didn't want to use their weapons against Germany.
00:12:31
Speaker
as citizens and even if there were were um a Soviet post in the village and you wanted to cross, yeah well, maybe two kilometers outside of the village, you found a place that was not as easily observable where you could try to get over. It was not allowed if you didn't have a permit, but of course a lot of people tried to get to the other side to visit family members, maybe to visit their boyfriends or girlfriends or to just even go to the farmer. They had always bought their milk from. And if people wanted to keep up those relations, they had to be illegal. um There's a German term, Grenzgänger, which I would translate with border goers.
00:13:16
Speaker
And ah for example, my grandfather, He spent um the summer vacation up until the middle of the 1950s in the West with his grandparents.
00:13:28
Speaker
So there were still ways. But here, Rödler Reut, after the fence was erected in 1952, of course, there was no crossing. People still could look over the fence. Later on, could also look over the wall if they were in the upper floors of their homes because it was only 3,30 meters high. And if you lived a little further away from it, of course, you were able to look over it. But it was harsh, even though if people thought this was the punishment for the war they had fought in, like my grandma, who turned 94 this year, for example, she says this was our punishment. And I didn't think much about it because we had done something terrible and now we had to and to carry the burden.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, still, I think it was very sad if you just could watch the other side and not participate. We have i an eyewitness here in the village, for example, she tells that, of course, you knew what was going on on the other side because you watched each other. And um you saw if someone had a big belly and was pregnant, you saw if someone died and a lot of people in black came to visit the house, um or you also saw what kind of clothing was on the ropes in the garden to try
00:14:51
Speaker
But yeah, you you could not participate in a real way, right? And lives developed apart from one another.
00:15:02
Speaker
Even then, when in 1989 the border opened here in Mödlareuth, people, they just got back together. Of course, there was a little... um strangeness because sometimes you hadn't talked for maybe almost 40 years but because still ah situation in some ways was similar the rural thing not living in munich or berlin which was totally different they had stuff to talk about and of course they also were very interested in how did the agricultural
00:15:37
Speaker
ah politics work in the GDR and how was it on the other side and it was just um a very very happy moment for the people living here if you watch um even filmic scenes that stem from that time or look at photographs or listen to people talk about it you always feel that happiness and relief And ah we've all seen, whenever the Berlin Wall came down itself, that the joy on people's faces to be finally reunited as well.
00:16:08
Speaker
If I can just go back slightly, Susan, was there a ah did I did read there was one escape
Escapes and Security: The 1973 Incident
00:16:13
Speaker
attempt. Is that true? Somebody got his van, I'll not spoil it, but he got his van and he parked beside the wall. And if you take it from there.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, so, well, it was the only successful escape over the wall. which took place in 1973. So yeah, seven years roughly after construction and a 34 year old driver who because of his job as a driver had a permit to also travel to distinct villages in the border region.
00:16:46
Speaker
He used his job and also he had done it for half a year already, his knowledge from doing the job to escape. He drove up to the control post because of course there were different control posts. If you got closer to the border, there was an actual border area up to five kilometers wide in which you only could enter if you had a permit.
00:17:10
Speaker
And um there were controls and he told um the the the officers, the police officers, the border officers at the next control that he had to do something and he wanted to use the short route and it was already late. And then he gave out cigarettes is to say here, share them with your companion and everything's going to be all right. And by that, by the talks he did, he um made the the thoughts of the control poise,
00:17:41
Speaker
not yeah on duty anymore. I'm missing the word at the moment, but they forgot to control his car. So if he hadn't done the talks, maybe they would have looked into the car and then found his self-built iron ladder, which of course he was not allowed to take into the border area with him.
00:18:00
Speaker
and He had done the camouflaging very well and was able to get up to Mödlar Reut, drove through the village and then at a certain point it turned off the headlights of his car, left the road and drove it right next to the wall. It was um a small bus, a Barkas B1000, Czechoslovakian model.
00:18:22
Speaker
and ah drove it right next to the wall, put the iron ladder on top of the roof, leaned it against the wall and then was able to climb over the wall and cross the border on the other side.
00:18:34
Speaker
And this was kind of a scandal here because right at the spot just a couple of dozen meters away there was an old wooden watchtower and of course that night two guards were on duty.
00:18:47
Speaker
and Why didn't they try to stop this escape? Why didn't they fire a single warning shot? And the the two guys, they said they noticed the car, of course, because it stopped and the braid light brake lights turned right red. But then they thought, huh? There have been two controls beforehand and this must be someone who's allowed here. Cannot be any other way.
00:19:14
Speaker
Then couple of seconds later, they thought, well, still maybe it's strange and put a huge searchlight on the spot. Then saw that somebody was trying to get out.
00:19:25
Speaker
And then the the boss of the two border guards, he said he wanted to fire a warning shot. And while it's trying to lift his rifle, the sling of the rifle got stuck on some wires in the watchtower so that he could not lift it.
00:19:40
Speaker
And therefore that no shots were fired. Then there was a reconstruction of this escape, like um the border troops and the Ministry of State Security, they reconstructed even escape attempts to find out what was wrong.
00:19:57
Speaker
How was this person even able to get into the border area without us noticing, for example. And by that, They ah wanted to make it more fail-proof and get rid of all the the mistakes in the border security and stuff. So they found out that it took roughly 90 seconds from the moment the car left the road to the moment when the refugee was in West Germany. And even with all the hindrances, the flashlight needing to be used and the rifle getting stuck, there still would have been 30 to 40 seconds time to stop it.
00:20:35
Speaker
And because they did not do it, they got military arrests because they did not fulfill their duty. And of course, there were even more consequences. Their commander, he had to do self-critique in front of other border commanders. I don't know if you ever heard about self-critique in socialist countries um that mainly consisted of taking accountability of your mistakes in front of your peers and then...
00:21:04
Speaker
So, and he had to explain why the border security was not yeah developed well enough already and how this could have happened. And then they redesigned our border fortifications little bit.
00:21:18
Speaker
And next to the wall, a fence was erected in direction of the GDR ah so that there would be a second barrier people needed to overcome. Then a new big concrete watchtower was built in the middle of the village to get a better overview of everything.
00:21:35
Speaker
Another eyewitness um who's already passed, she wrote down that at least 150 old trees were cut so that the view from the new watchtower to the border was not in any way blocked because people could have hidden behind a tree or a bush or whatever.
00:21:54
Speaker
And then also this escape took place next to a former mill and the buildings of that mill, they were demolished afterwards.
00:22:05
Speaker
The courage to do that on the part of that man must have been extraordinary, especially in them days. I personally wouldn't be able to do it myself, but and if if people are able to go, we do have the reconstruction images, of photographs of of of what happened. I really recommend people go and have a look.
00:22:22
Speaker
if If we could just move on then.
Preserving History: The Mödlareuth Museum
00:22:24
Speaker
So if we go from 1990 onwards and then the development of the museum, I suppose its it's a living museum because there's a lot of people who didn't live through this time time period. And was there a lot of consultation between the local members of the village and the development of the museum itself?
00:22:39
Speaker
So, well, maybe I have to go a little further back in time, but only to 1990, don't worry. So um ah we have to say that without the Mödler-Reuth population on both sides, it would never have been possible to even develop the museum in its old form.
00:22:58
Speaker
They were the ones who said, yeah, we have to keep part of the border fortifications of the barriers. This is special here and we want to show it to the future generations.
00:23:11
Speaker
And then a lot of Mötler Reuters also helped getting the museum started working here. We still have one or two older, already retired ladies who help at the cashier. And this was very, very important. And of course, over the years, working so close together with the village, which got smaller and smaller nowadays, there are only about 50 people living here.
00:23:37
Speaker
And we almost know everyone. And they freely gave out their memories, photographs they took. letters they wrote, documents they had, and also the last couple of years with the yeah development of technology.
00:23:56
Speaker
And they were also there for us so that we could do interviews, audiovisual interviews. And those are now also integrated in the new museum. It was very important for us to have a modern exhibition because yeah you might know that um how people see and perceive things that has changed. They don't want very long text. They rather want...
00:24:22
Speaker
like a mosaic of the history with different parts that complement each other. ah Yeah. So the the the interviews with the contemporary witnesses here in Mödlareuth and also with people who tried to escape over the border, some successful, some not, they play a big part in the new exhibition.
00:24:42
Speaker
People talk about la a life in the village on eastern and western side, but also they talk about their perception of the wall, for example. And we have a place where you can sit, listen to those wall stories and actually have a look at the wall through a big panoramic window.
00:25:01
Speaker
And also this new exhibition, which is now 500 square meters, is double the amount that our old exhibition had. So we are able to show more photographs, also more objects. And those um talk about not only the history of the village, of course, we have a lot of stuff concerning Mödlareuth, but of course also the broader picture. Our exhibition is meant to give the historical context, but then explain this bigger history on the example of Mödlareuth or the region, if you cannot grab themes here. For example, peaceful revolution, there were no demonstrations in Mödlareuth.
00:25:49
Speaker
But there were demonstrations in the city of Plaun, which is maybe 30 kilometers away from here. And it's very um important for the region their memory, historical and communal memory, to have been part of that movement of mass demonstrations. And we also talk about that, for example.
The Emotional Legacy of Division
00:26:10
Speaker
And su Susan, at my last question to finish us off, for yourself working in the museum, like you just touched on, it's you know there's records of every everyday life, you know photographs, letters.
00:26:21
Speaker
was there Is there a particular moment or story or person that made you feel that this was important history to share? i think there are so many. um i did my internship here in 2008, so I've been working here for quite some years now, but there's always people who touch you to your core with their stories.
00:26:46
Speaker
mostly because they lived through something during the times of the vision or talk about their parents or grandparents. And i would say that it's often the small stuff that makes me realize how important it is to do that work and not only to be a reminder of those times so that people can also tell their children and grandchildren more easily about it,
00:27:15
Speaker
um Yeah, but also as a room of exchange, a room where people can share, because sometimes the first time they talk about their experiences, if it's triggered by something that they see in our exhibitions And one one example a couple of years ago, don't know if you heard about um the evictions at the inter-German border.
00:27:42
Speaker
There was a big one in 1952 after that police degree and another one in 1961 when they started to have the new stage of fortifications and people who lived too close to the actual border. whose houses um stood in the way of border fortifications or who were put into different categories. For example, they had been members of Nazi parties. They were criminals. They didn't have any documents, for example. They were resettled into the GDR Inland.
00:28:17
Speaker
And I knew about that, of course. um One of my grandpas, her best friend, was resettled in 1961. But I once met a man who told me about those people being resettled into his hometown in the GDR Inland and how difficult it was for them to get into this new village community because also there were rumors before they arrived there and also how heartbreaking it was for the older generation. They never were able to get their new home base there. In their minds, they were always still living at the border, but were not allowed to even travel there for a visit.
00:29:05
Speaker
And yeah that might have been already in 2010. And this conversation will stay with me. That was historian Susan Berger sharing her insight into the divided world of Modlarwath and the people whose lives were transformed by a border that ran straight through their village.
00:29:24
Speaker
My thanks to Susan for bringing this remarkable story and the voices of its residents to life. If you'd like learn more about Modlarwath and its history, you can explore Susan's research online or visit the Modlarwath Museum to see the site where so much of this story unfolded.
00:29:41
Speaker
Don't forget to subscribe and rate Pieces of History on iTunes and Spotify. And if you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me up pieces of history pod at at outlook.com or follow the podcast on Instagram or Facebook at Pieces of History.
00:29:54
Speaker
Thanks for listening.