The Wall


Twenty five years ago this year, on the night of 9 November, the Berlin wall fell, marking an era of change throughout Europe. It had stood for more than 28 years, during which time it developed from a hastily constructed barbed wire fence into a sophisticated controlled security zone.


But what is left of the wall today, and what of its impact on Berlin? I wanted to find out for myself what traces remain twenty-five years after it fell. What I discovered was a mixed story. In some places the wall still exists as a monument to history, or a creative expression of freedom with its art and graffiti covered surfaces. Graffiti covers almost everything in Berlin, a kind of legacy of defiance – like the scrawled expressions of freedom that appeared on the western side of the wall during those repressive years. In some places there are what seem like forgotten, secret sections covered in weeds, as if hiding from the developers’ bulldozers.


Elsewhere lines of cobble markers are set into the road – a reminder of where the wall once ran through the city centre, though in places the line unexpectedly terminates or runs into the side of a Starbucks coffee shop. There remains some evidence of the hinterland mauer – the inner security wall, and of wild, abandoned areas that were once part of the ‘dead zone’ that existed behind the border wall. But increasingly these are disappearing and being replaced by anonymous-looking apartments or corporate buildings.


See the full story on Maptia

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