On November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall was tore down. Starting at midnight that day, the East Berlin’s Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country’s borders. And while Berlin tore down the wall, and essentially made East and West Germany one country, there are still spots where the wall stands.
One such city, or better said, village, is Mödlareuth, a small village situated partly in Bavaria and partly in Thuringia. Between 1949 and 1990, the northern part of the village was part of East Germany, while the southern part was part of West Germany.
Americans called it Little Berlin, due to the fact that same as Berlin, the village had a wall dividing it until 1989. The city is of course is just part of Germany now, but there are still remains of the older system in the city.
In 1994, Mödlareuth, had an open-air museum about the border between the East and West Germany. The museum includes a portion of the original wall, and also a rebuilt barrier typical of those on the border at the time. And while there is free passage between the two parts of the village today, there are still many differences.
Some 30 years after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the city with only 15 houses, has two majors, two postal codes, two telephone area codes, and two dialects of the Germany language.
The city is located on the border between Bavaria and Thuringia since 1810. When Germany was divided between the Soviet Union and USA, the city was divided with a line at the border between the two sides. The East part was given to the Soviet Union, while the West to the Americans.
The wall was built with guard towers, minefield, and much more. And while there is only small section of the wall left standing, the city is still divided.
Fun Facts
Some interesting facts about what happens still in the city. If a citizen of the East part wants to talk on a phone with someone in the west part, they pay a price like they are taking an international call. There are even two schools for the kids of the different sides of the city.
Another difference is greetings. For example, in the Bavarian side of the city, people greet guests with the traditional Bavarian greeting “Gruss Gott”. On the other side, locals use the German greeting, “Guten Tag”.
And while the community is close to being united and unified in the past several years, local citizens still want to be divided. However, they started holding community together gatherings in the local center, which is located in the Thuringia part of the city.
And unlike Berlin, where citizens did not know the citizens of the other side of the wall, citizens of Mödlareuth know each other. There were even cases were two brothers were separated by the wall.
George Bush Senior, when he was a vice president under Ronald Reagan, he visited the small village. He even said that the wall in the village is more dangerous than the Berlin Wall.
