Berliners Wish Wall Had Not Been Pulled Down

BERLIN, April 11, 2007 — -- The removal of one of the last standing sections of the infamous Berlin Wall has caused an outcry in Berlin.

Just before the Easter holidays, contract workers for the Federal Civil Engineering and Planning Office removed a 59-foot-long strip of a graffiti-covered section of the Berlin Wall to make room for construction of an office building. It had stood near the famous Potsdamer Platz, the historic hub of the city.

Erich Stahnke, a 47-year-old businessman who says he bought the section from former East German officials in 1990, is outraged.

"The part they removed is one of the last elements of the wall that stood on East German soil, " he said to ABCNEWS.com. "I've been fighting for years now to preserve that stretch of the wall for future generations to see it for what it is, namely a trophy for democracy winning over communism."

But Andreas Kuebler, a spokesman for the Federal Civil Engineering and Planning Office, says the portion that was removed will be preserved.

"We will incorporate the very section of the wall into the new environment ministry building and it will be very visible, when the project is completed in 2009. We've been planning to remove those parts ever since 2004 in order to make space for two underground floors. … The wall parts will be kept in storage during the construction of the new building," Kuebler said.

Stahnke, one of many pro-wall activists in Berlin, also says that the pieces of the wall were removed in total secrecy so as not to upset the Berliners who have protested against its removal in the past.

"The officials have been lying to us in the past, any reason they find is good enough to make the remnants of the wall disappear," he said.

Kuebler said, "If we had wanted to do this in secrecy, we would have chosen a cold and rainy January morning to begin the construction and certainly not the week before the Easter holidays, when approximately 1.8 million tourists are visiting Berlin."

Alexandra Hildebrandt, director of Wallmuseum, one of the most frequented museums in Berlin and located near Checkpoint Charlie, is also up in arms.

"This is a typical example for the historical shortsightedness in this town. Why not just leave things as they are. All remaining sections of the wall are dramatic reminders of the past. It is almost as if some powers that be want to delete that past from our memories," Hildebrandt said.

But there are some portions of the wall that are being left untouched.

In 1998, a wall memorial was inaugurated at the Bernauer Strasse, a street that was divided along its entire length under the communists, with buildings in the east vacated and windows bricked up.

The memorial consists of about 229 feet of the Berlin Wall, with slits in the inner wall and steel sheets at the ends.

But preservationists contend tourists will be hard-pressed to find any sections of the wall, as barely two miles are still standing.

"When the Berlin Wall eventually fell in November 1989, it became a symbol of freedom. Why would anybody destroy that? It's a disgrace!" Stahnke said.