Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
with their names, dates of death, and transparent photos viewable from both sides. Before
it was the no-man's-land between the walls, this area was the parish graveyard for a nearby
church;ironically,DDRofficialshadtomoveathousandgravesfromheretocreatea“death
strip.”
This “Doku-Center” has two movies, a small exhibit, anda viewpoint tower overlooking the
preserved Wall section. The two
films
shown on the ground floor are different from those
screened at the Visitor Center:
The View,
dating from 1965, tells the story of an elderly West
Berlin woman who lived near the Wall, and could look into the death strip and the East from
her window (in German only).
Mauerflug
features aerial photography of Berlin from the
springof1990—aftertheWallhadopened,butwhilemostofthe96-mile-longbarricadestill
stood, offering an illuminating look at a divided city (English subtitles).
Upstairs is an
exhibit
with photos and videos detailing the construction of the Wall that
began August 13, 1961. At the model of the Wall along Bernauer Strasse, notice how exist-
ing buildings were incorporated into the structure. Headphones let you listen to propagand-
istic, high-spirited oompah music from East Germany that celebrated the construction of the
wall: “It was high time!” There's also a list of the 163 people who died attempting to cross
the Wall. From the top-floor
viewpoint
look down at the Wall itself (described next).
This is the last surviving intact bit of the complete “Wall system” (with both sides of its
Wall—capped by the round pipe that made it tougher for escapees to get a grip—and its no-
man's-land, or death strip). The guard tower came from a different part of the Wall; it was
actually purchased on that great capitalist invention, eBay (over in Moscow, Stalin spins in
hisgrave).Astripofphotosanddescriptions explains whatyou'reseeing. Plaques alongthe
sidewalk below you mark the locations of escapes or deaths.
Just beyond the Wall section (to the left), and also viewable from the tower, is a modern,
cagelike church (described next).
This marks the spot of the late-19th-century Church of Reconciliation, which survived
WWII bombs...but did not survive the communists. When the Wall was built, this church
wound up, unusable, right in the middle of the death strip. It was torn down in 1985, sup-
posedly because it got in the way of the border guards' sight lines. (This coincided with a
period in which anti-DDR opposition movements were percolating in Christian churches,
promptingthenonbelieverregimetodestroyseveralhousesofworship.)Ifyou'reinterested,
walkaroundthechapelforacloserlook(itclosesat17:00).Noticethelargerfootprintofthe
