English: A man on the "eastern side" (then still the "Soviet occupation zone, SBZ") with a notepad in his hand talks across the Tannbach border stream to a citizen of the western part of Mödlareuth, American occupation zone, in July 1949. A border official from the SBZ (the GDR was founded around 3 months later, on October 7, 1949) in uniform and with his rifle shouldered observes the conversation at close range; he is also the only one looking directly into the photographer's camera. Presumably this is a brief meeting between the then village leaders or mayors of the two districts. Two other men and 5 children - 1 boy, barefoot, and 4 girls - are standing on the side, watching and listening. Such an uncomplicated meeting between citizens and/or representatives of the municipalities on the inner-German border was obviously still possible until 1949 ... . The local location of the border between the GDR and FRG, which soon developed into the "Iron Curtain", is illustrated here by the example of Mödlareuth in Thuringia and Bavaria in a section from the official topographic map 1:25. 000 Gefell 5537, 1954 edition on BayernAtlas: https://v.bayern.de/3TyXD - Note on functionality in the BayernAtlas map section: The current map display (1:10,000 local map) can be compared with the above-mentioned map from 1954 using the blue vertical slider bar). Translated with DeepL.com (free version)