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If you try and find traces of the line of the Berlin Wall beyond the few fragments preserved deliberately in the town centre, you'll have to look very hard. The line of the perimeter street and 'death strip' can be picked out for much of the circumference on Google Earth if you know where to look, but of the wall itself, virtually nothing has survived. It does not survive in the fence-line of any used car lot built up against its (west-German) face, or anything like that. I spotted one fallen slab lying in the grass on the northeast side of the town, but apart from that, it seems the Wall was demolished with German thoroughness and the bits disposed of so effectively that the tourist souvenirs sold as scavenged 'pieces of the Wall' are all fake. Now even one of the more iconic pieces of the surviving fragments of this defining monument are threatened with demolition, as a newly vibrant Berlin turns its back further on the past.
If you try and find traces of the line of the Berlin Wall beyond the few fragments preserved deliberately in the town centre, you'll have to look very hard. The line of the perimeter street and 'death strip' can be picked out for much of the circumference on Google Earth if you know where to look, but of the wall itself, virtually nothing has survived. It does not survive in the fence-line of any used car lot built up against its (west-German) face, or anything like that. I spotted one fallen slab lying in the grass on the northeast side of the town, but apart from that, it seems the Wall was demolished with German thoroughness and the bits disposed of so effectively that the tourist souvenirs sold as scavenged 'pieces of the Wall' are all fake. Now even one of the more iconic pieces of the surviving fragments of this defining monument are threatened with demolition, as a newly vibrant Berlin turns its back further on the past.
In a move first announced publicly only on Thursday afternoon, Berlin developers attempted this morning to tear up and remove one of the last still-standing pieces of the Berlin Wall [...] Taken by surprise by the short notice of the wall demolition, 400 protesters tried this morning to form a human chain preventing cranes getting near the threatened section, whose upper rim was already ripped off last night. The crew were successful in removing two slabs, but at 11:15 a.m. the demolition was called to a halt — it’s unsure for how long.[...] Destroying a historic landmark to build condos so encapsulates many Berliners' fears for their city in general that it can only galvanize resistance to redevelopment. Twenty-six years after President Reagan commanded Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" it might seem ironic that people are now fighting to preserve the last vestige of a once hated division. But perhaps more than any other nation, Germans are exceptionally conscious of the perils of effacing history, even if its memories are painful.Feargus O'Sullivan, "Can the Longest Remaining Stretch of the Berlin Wall Be Saved From the Threat of Condos?" The Atlantic Cities 1st March 2013.
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