Museum of Tannery and City History Hirschberg

From 1945 to 1989 Hirschberg was a border town on the inner-German border (in the restricted area, in addition to the usual barriers also separated from Bavaria by a wall) and from 1966 it gave its name to the border crossing on the A 9 (Rudolphstein on the Bavarian side).

For 500 years, the economic development of the city was characterized by leather processing. In the 20th century, the Hirschberg leather factory, which was founded in 1741, was at times the largest producer of shoe and sole leather in Germany. Even after the Knoch family was expropriated in 1947, the VEB leather factory was the economic, but also the social and cultural center of the city. In 1992 the company went bankrupt, from 1993 to 1996 the 16 hectare factory was demolished except for today's Museum of Tannery and City History.(...from Wiki)

Up until autumn 1989, walls, barbed wire and death strips shaped life in the
City of Hirschberg. On May 26, 1952, the Council of Ministers of the GDR passed a regulation on measures
the demarcation line" between the GDR and the FRG. That meant the complete sealing off of the inner-German border. The leather factory, the rock faces
below the castle and the Hag nature park required extensive border security"
leaving deep wounds in the landscape. The barriers initially consisted of simple wooden fences, which were expanded to extensive border structures in the years and decades that followed.
The construction of the approximately 1,400 meter long wall in Hirschberg was completed in 1966. The second wall, 230 meters long, was built in 1983 between the laboratory building and the office building and along the Uferstrasse. Hirschberg was in the protective strip (500 m) and in the exclusion zone (5 km). All residents of the protective strip and the exclusion zone required a residence and residence permit. Entry was only possible via the checkpoints in Dobareuth and on the
Motorway 9 possible. Visitors had to apply for a permit well in advance.
Everyday life at the border included the increased army and police presence as well as controls by volunteers
border guards. Night curfews were common into the 1970s. inhuman
worthy were the forced resettlements, the actions "Vermin (1952) and Cornflower" (1961)".
While in nature the "border interventions" are scarring and today the Saalebogen, the Schlossfelsen with deer and hanging bridge as well as the Hag with the Long Bank form the "Green Belt of Thuringia" with scenic
Representing gems, the Museum of Tannery and City History reminds us of life in and around
with border. (...from information board)

Hirschberg.....
A place that was not accessible to everyone as a restricted area in GDR times.