The Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse

During our stay in Berlin we rented apartments near the corner of Bernauer Strasse. The end wall of the apartment block would have formed part of the inner Berlin wall and was right on the edge of the 'death strip' - the gap between the Soviet controlled East and the French West. A plaque on the side of the building described the capture of Berliners trying to tunnel from West to East. Bernauer Strasse forms part of a large memorial to the wall. As well as the Chapel of Reconciliation (see earlier post) there are large sections of the wall remaining and work is starting on a new developments to a commemorative landscape. The Berlin Wall Memorial was established in 1998 by the Federal Republic of Germany in memory of the city’s division and of the victims of the communist tyranny. The design by the Stuttgart architects Kohlhoff & Kohlhoff preserves sixty meters of the former border strip in their original depth as a physical reminder of the Wall.

Map showing the scale of the division imposed by the wall and the site of the memorial