The record
An unpainted segment and a wooden cross on the city boundary for two men killed thirty-four years apart — only one of them at the Wall.
An unpainted wall element and a wooden cross stand at the corner of Edelhofdamm and Oranienburger Chaussee, on the northern edge of Berlin where Frohnau meets Glienicke/Nordbahn. They were put up on 27 July 1991. The inscription dedicates them to the victims of the Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961 to 9 November 1989, and names two men.
Michael Bittner, from Rosenthal, was twenty-five. His applications to leave the GDR had been refused, and on 24 November 1986 he tried to climb the last wall near Nohlstraße, between Glienicke and Reinickendorf, with a wooden ladder. The border guards fired on him deliberately, and he fell back with two bullets in his back at about ten to two in the morning.
Herbert Bauer died on 25 December 1952, nine years before the Wall existed. He was a twenty-seven-year-old West Berlin police officer who answered a call on Oranienburger Straße, in the French sector, where Soviet soldiers were taking visitors into the East, and was shot; the exchange of fire that followed kept anyone from reaching him, and he bled to death. Hundreds of thousands came to his funeral.
So the memorial's own dates do not fit one of its two names, and it is worth being exact about. The Berlin Wall Foundation's directory of traces, which lists the element as MAU-728, has the years the wrong way round, giving Bittner 1952 and Bauer 1986. The plaque itself has them right, and the Chronik der Mauer's biography confirms Bittner's date. What the place commemorates is a border that killed people before it was a wall and went on doing so after.
How did it get here?
Set up with the wooden cross on 27 July 1991. Where the element came from is not recorded.
Sources & verification
Opfer der Mauer — Gedenktafeln in Berlin ↗
A wall segment and wooden cross at Edelhofdamm corner Oranienburger Chaussee, set up on 27 July 1991, inscribed to the victims of the Berlin Wall 13.8.1961–9.11.1989, Herbert Bauer †25.12.52 and Michael Bittner †24.11.86; Bauer a 27-year-old police officer shot answering a call about Soviet soldiers taking visitors into the East, who bled to death, with hundreds of thousands at his funeral; Bittner a 25-year-old from Rosenthal whose applications to leave had been refused.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Michael Bittner — Chronik der Mauer, Todesopfer ↗
Born 31 August 1961, shot on 24 November 1986 near Nohlstraße between Glienicke/Nordbahn and Berlin-Reinickendorf while climbing the last wall with a wooden ladder; hit by two bullets in the back at about 1.50 am.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-728 Gedenkort Oranienburger Chaussee — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
An unpainted wall element standing as a memorial to the victims of the Berlin Wall beside the memorial cross for Michael Bittner and Herbert Bauer, catalogued as MAU-728; the entry gives Bittner's death as 1952 and Bauer's as 1986.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
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