The record
A segment laid on its side rather than stood upright, painted by schoolchildren from the East German town that has been twinned with this one since 1966.
The segment on the Nelson Mandela Promenade at Gonfreville-l'Orcher, near Le Havre, does not stand. It has been tipped on its side and laid crosswise on a concrete block, which is a deliberate and unusual choice: almost every other record in this catalogue keeps the object upright, in the posture it had when it worked.
It is painted with a peace slogan and with German and French flags, the work of five pupils from the youth art school of Teltow together with the artist Hans-Jürgen Brauer. Teltow, on the south-western edge of Berlin, offered the segment to its French twin in 2015. The two towns had been paired since 1966, in the GDR period, and the partnership turned fifty on the day the segment was inaugurated, 4 September 2016. The unveiling was folded into the town's annual commemoration of its liberation from German occupation, with the mayors of both towns present — Jean-Paul Lecoq for Gonfreville-l'Orcher and Thomas Schmidt for Teltow.
Teltow recurs in this catalogue more than any place outside Berlin itself. The building materials firms whose yards there held the surviving elements supplied the segments that went to Colombes, to Uijeongbu in South Korea, and here — the town where the leftovers of the border were stored became, by default, its distribution point.
How did it get here?
Offered by the twin town of Teltow in 2015 and inaugurated on 4 September 2016; painted by five pupils of the Teltow youth art school with the artist Hans-Jürgen Brauer.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #1442 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #147.
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The segment laid on its side on a concrete block on the Nelson Mandela Promenade, its painting by five Teltow art school pupils with Hans-Jürgen Brauer, Teltow's 2015 offer, the fiftieth anniversary of the twinning on the inauguration day of 4 September 2016, the liberation commemoration, and the attendance of mayors Jean-Paul Lecoq and Thomas Schmidt.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Gonfreville l'Orcher (76) : un morceau du mur de Berlin offert par la ville jumelle allemande ↗
France 3 Normandie, 6 September 2016: an authentic section of the Wall, decorated by an artist, given by the twin town of Teltow and installed on the Mandela promenade on 4 September.
Press reportSource accessed 2026-09-17
Magazine d'informations municipales de Gonfreville l'Orcher, n° 381, mai 2018 ↗
The town's own magazine: a procession on 6 April 2018 stopped beside the section of the Berlin Wall at the end of the Promenade Nelson-Mandela.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 1442
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 147
No photograph of this one has been published. If you have taken one, or know when it arrived or who gave it, we would like to hear. Contribute to this record