The record
A segment from the Spreebogen, bought at auction by the city and unveiled on 9 November 2009 outside the building where West Germany kept its register of crimes committed by the East German state.
From 24 November 1961 until 1992 the Zentrale Erfassungsstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, the central registry of the West German state justice administrations, worked from a building in Salzgitter-Bad. Willy Brandt, then governing mayor of West Berlin, had proposed it. It recorded killings and attempted killings at the border, political sentences, abuse in prisons, abductions and persecution in the GDR, so that they could be prosecuted one day, and by 1992 it had registered more than 42,000 acts of violence. Its files were evidence in the trials of the border guards and are now in the Federal Archives at Koblenz. The building is now a police station.
In November 2007 the city's administrative committee, on a motion from the CDU group, asked for a visible sign of what had been done there. The city's cultural services bought a segment at auction early in 2009 — a property company from Lünen in Westphalia had acquired it from the federal government — and it arrived in June. It is 3.70 metres high, a metre wide and weighs 2.7 tonnes, and it stood in Berlin on the Spreebogen, at the corner of Schiffbauerdamm and Reinhardtstraße.
It was unveiled with a stele on 9 November 2009, after a ceremony at the local grammar school with the mayors of Salzgitter and of its partner town Gotha, Frank Klingebiel and Knut Kreuch, and the registry's former spokesman Hans-Jürgen Grasemann, before young people from both towns. A metal plate on the segment, with a strand of barbed wire shown in a round recess beside the inscription, dedicates it to the victims of division and dictatorship and says of the registry: „Sie war eine Hoffnung für viele“ — it was a hope for many.
How did it get here?
Bought at auction early in 2009 by the city's cultural services from a property company in Lünen, which had acquired it from the federal government; from the Spreebogen in Berlin, at the corner of Schiffbauerdamm and Reinhardtstraße. Unveiled on 9 November 2009.
Sources
Listed by the Berlin Wall Archive as #26.
Zentrale Erfassungsstelle — Stadt Salzgitter ↗
The registry began work on 24 November 1961 on Willy Brandt's proposal, registered over 42,000 acts of violence between 1961 and 1992, its files served in the border-guard trials and are now in the Federal Archives at Koblenz; since 9 November 2009 a stele and a section of the Berlin Wall in front of the former building in Salzgitter-Bad, now the police, commemorate it, with a plaque dedicated to the victims of division and dictatorship reading „Sie war eine Hoffnung für viele“.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Gedenkstätte Erfassungsstelle — Stadt Salzgitter ↗
The city's account of the inauguration on 9 November of the memorial, a section of the Berlin Wall, with the mayors Frank Klingebiel and Knut Kreuch (Gotha) and the former spokesman Hans-Jürgen Grasemann; the piece was bought at auction early in the year by the city's cultural services, arrived in June, had been acquired from the federal government by a property company from Lünen, stood at the Spreebogen at the corner of Schiffbauerdamm and Reinhardtstraße, and is 2.7 tonnes, one metre wide and 370 cm high.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Denkmal „Berliner Mauer“ — Orte des Erinnerns ↗
The administrative committee's commission of November 2007 on a CDU motion; on 9 November 2009 a stele, an original segment and a memorial plaque were inaugurated outside the police building at the Pfingstanger in Salzgitter, after a ceremony at the local grammar school; the 2.7-tonne, 3.70-metre segment from the Spreebogen carries a metal plate with a strand of barbed wire and the dedication to the victims of division and dictatorship.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
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 26
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
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