This hilly, rural hamlet  located on the border of the states of Thuringia and Bavaria, is now also celebrating the 25th anniversary since the inner-German border came down.

In 1949, the geographic boundary here – a narrow creek that runs through the middle of the village – became a deep geopolitical gulf, as post-war Germany was split into the western Federal Republic of Germany and the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).

A village cut in half
 

   
    “When blue baby clothes hung on a clothesline, we knew that a boy was born, and this is how people followed what was happening on the other side,” said Arnold Friedrich, who in the 1980s and 90s was mayor of the Bavarian side.

‘We fell into each others’ arms’