A 200-Foot Section of the Berlin Wall Has Been Torn Down to Make Way for Condos, Leaving Historians Appalled

The German capital has many ruins that bear witness to its
tumultuous history. Stretches of the Berlin Wall are preserved as a
reminder of the pain wrought by political division during the Cold
War, but a piece of that memory has disappeared overnight to make
way for new apartments.

Historians are furious that a 200-foot (60-meter) stretch
of the graffiti covered barrier has been demolished in Pankow, a
borough in the northeastern part of Berlin. The Berlin Wall
Foundation says it was not been informed about the removal,
according to Der
Taggespiegel. The foundation’s curator Manfred Wichmann
told the paper that the lost piece was “a stone witness of how
deeply the border regime of the German Democratic Republic
intervened in the everyday life of the people in East Berlin.”

The lost section was part of the Hinterlandmauer, meaning inner
wall section, that was installed in the 1970s, reinforcing the
barrier first erected in 1961. This particular strip ran along a
railway line that went between Berlin and the Polish border city of
Szczecin; it served as an added protection against any refugees who
managed to slip past the main border wall.

Last November marked the 30th
anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Amid citywide
commemorative events, the Berlin Wall Foundation and the GDR Museum
announced that they
were working to ensure that this Pankow remnant of the wall was
preserved. Though not as obviously remarkable as the East Side
Gallery or Bernauerstrasse, this particular section was one of the
largest pieces that remained.

The barrier that divided East and West Germany snaked throughout
much of inner Berlin, and several parts of it are preserved as
monuments, but this particular section was not listed as a
historical site. Around the city, some parts are now tourist
hotspots while other sections sit quietly and overgrown in Berlin’s
suburbs. Three decades since the reunification of Germany, around
15 miles (25 kilometers) of the wall still stand but most are in
tourists sites. Just under a mile exists outside of those areas,
Wichmann tells Der Taggespiegel: “They are
disappearing more and more.”

The post A 200-Foot Section of the Berlin Wall Has Been Torn
Down to Make Way for Condos, Leaving Historians Appalled
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