On August 13th, 1961, construction began on a massive wall to encircle Western Berlin. The project was part of an effort to prevent citizens of East Germany from defecting to the West. With guard towers, barbed wires, and concrete blocks, the Berlin Wall stood for 38 years.

On November 9th, 1989, growing discontent caused the GDR to allow its citizens to visit West Germany. Thousands of East Berliners massed at the structure, many climbing the wall to join West Berliners in celebration while others smashed through with sledgehammers. Around the world, November 9th became known as the day the Berlin Wall fell.

This specimen is a fragment of concrete that was collected from the ruins of the wall after its fall in 1989. Shapes and patterns of each specimen vary as they come from different parts of the concrete.

All specimens are enclosed in an acrylic specimen jar with a removable top which arrives in a handsome, glass-topped riker box case measuring 4x3x1 (inches).  A small information card is included, which also serves as the certificate of authenticity.

In the wake of Germany’s defeat in the Second World War, its capital city was partitioned between the victorious Allied powers: the British, French, and Americans occupying sectors in the west with the Soviets, having captured the city from the Germans, commanding a larger chunk in the east.

In the years after the war, the Soviet Union restricted movement across the city’s zones, prompting the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin conceded and lifted the blockade, replacing it with a network of red tape to unofficially hamper crossings. 

In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany formed from the Allied-occupied zone, with the German Democratic Republic following later that year in the east. With the Allies’ rejection of Stalin’s plan for a reunified, disarmed Germany in 1952, the separation between East and West was fixed.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, control of the Soviet Union fell to Nikita Khrushchev who issued a 1958 ultimatum for U.S. troops to withdraw from West Berlin in six months. The deadline passed without incident and Khrushchev, along with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, largely balked at the Berlin issue, preferring to let the matter rest and not risk war.

Walter Ulbricht, East Germany’s head of government, faced with a population drain of defectors via West Berlin, took matters into his own hands. If Berlin was not to be united, then its separation would be final.

On August 13, 1961, the GDR, under Operation Rose, began the construction of a massive wall encircling West Berlin. Sewers were sealed, phone lines cut, and barbed wire was installed around the territory. In just four days, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall had been finalized, and the first concrete blocks were put into place.

The post-war division between East and West Germany was made literal with a deadly no man’s land encircling half the city, manned by 300 watch towers of armed guards.

The wall stood until November 9th, 1989 when waning Soviet control and popular discontent prompted the GDR to allow its citizens to visit West Germany. Thousands of East Berliners massed at the structure, many climbing the wall to join West Berliners in celebration while others smashed through with sledgehammers.

The popular legitimacy of the GDR collapsed and less than a year later, East Germany was absorbed into the FRG.