"Little Berlin"

While my mom was here we took a day trip to Modlareuth, a small town 1.5 hrs from here, also known as "little Berlin".  When the wall was put up in 1966 dividing East and West Germany, it was built right through the middle of town because it followed the political boundary between the states of Bavaria and Thuringian--a boundary that hadn't mattered much to the town prior to WWII.   

The town only had about 50 people to start with, and then neighbors didn't see each other for over 20 years.  

Today, Modlareuth is an open-air museum.  You can see what the border would have looked like during the Cold War, including the initial wood-type fence and the more permanent wall that followed.  There is a guard tower (relocated from elsewhere, and half as tall as the original.)  I should have written about this a few weeks ago when I remembered more, but basically all of the security was on the East Germany side, preventing people from leaving.  There were soldiers patrolling the West, but in a very different capacity.  The West side was more of a tourist attraction, even back then.

 This is the river that divides the two German states.  When Hyrum ran down below the bridge to pose, it reminded me of the story of the Billy Goats Gruff... and of course he had no clue what I was referring to.  Cultural differences!  I'll have to tell him the story one of these days

Tiago did not love being in the stroller this day, and was much happier once we let him run free. 

These are the fields on the West side of the wall.  The guards in the towers would have watched these for suspicious activity.  It also goes to show how rural this place is.

These striped poles marked the GDR boundary.

The museum also had an exhibit of vehicles, both American and German, from the Cold War era.  This jeep has the logo of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment because they were assigned to patrol the border.  That's Hyrum's current unit.