Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Gartenstrasse to Ackerstrasse
This key segment explains how the Berlin Wall restricted citizens' freedom of movement
and secured the East German government's power. An emotional highlight is the
Window
of Remembrance
, where photographic portraits give identity to would-be escapees who
lost their lives at the Berlin Wall, one of them only six years young. The park-like area sur-
rounding the installation was once part of the adjacent cemetery.
Near Ackerstrasse, the
National Monument to German Division
consists of a 70m sec-
tion of original Berlin Wall bounded by two rusted steel flanks and embedded in an artistic
representation of the border complex. Walk down Ackerstrasse to enter the monument from
the back. Through gaps in a wall, you can espy a reconstructed death strip complete with a
guard tower, a security patrol path and the lamps that bathed it in fierce light at night.
Ackerstrasse to Brunnenstrasse
Here the linear memorial focuses on the division's human toll and especially on the daring
and desperate escapes that took place along Bernauer Strasse. Just past Ackerstrasse, the
modern
Chapel of Reconciliation
stands in the spot of an 1894 brick church detonated in
1985 to make room for a widening of the border strip. A 15-minute remembrance service
for Wall victims is held at noon Tuesday to Friday. Other information stations deal with the
physical construction of the Wall and the continuous expansion of the border complex.
Brunnenstrasse to Schwedter Strasse
In the final section, info stations and exhibits must skirt private property and new apartment
buildings and are mostly restricted to a narrow strip along the former border patrol path. In-
formation stations address such topics as West Germany's take on the Berlin Wall, what
daily life was like for an East German border guard and the eventual fall of the Wall in
1989. A highlight is the dramatic story of the world-famous
Tunnel 29
, which ran for 135m
below Bernauer Strasse and helped 29 people escape from East Berlin in September 1962.
