Berlin tries to save crumbling remains of wall

BERLIN: Eighteen years after the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, Germans are battling to preserve the last remnants of a barrier that still haunts the country.

"At first, everybody was overjoyed that the wall fell. Then a lot of people became irritated that it could disappear without trace," said Johannes Cramer, an expert in the history of architecture at Berlin's Technical University.

Of the 155 kilometres (96 miles) of grey concrete that surrounded West Berlin for 28 years, only three kilometres in total is still standing.

Just five empty watchtowers look out over the city, compared to 302 manned by guards with their finger on the trigger in 1989.

"It is too late to change the fact that things disappeared in the years that followed the fall of the wall," said Stefan Jacobs, a journalist at the daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

"But we absolutely have to preserve what is still standing to be able to tell the history of Berlin."

This is not as simple as it sounds, as the uncertain fate of Berlin's famed East Side Gallery shows.

The gallery, a 1.3-kilometre-long reinforcement that was built directly behind the wall, is covered with paintings by 118 artists from around the world documenting the tumultuous emotions that marked the end of Germany's division.

One of the most famous works captures Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the long-time leader of East Germany's communist regime Eric Honecker sharing a passionate kiss.