The record
A surviving GDR command tower on the Spandau ship canal, for one of the first people shot at the border.
A former GDR border command tower standing by the Spandau ship canal, kept as a memorial to Günter Litfin, shot in the Humboldthafen on 24 August 1961 — eleven days after the border was closed, and among the first people killed trying to cross. The tower is one of very few left: the watchtowers were demolished faster and more completely than the wall itself, which is why a piece of concrete is easy to find in this catalogue and a tower is not.
After reunification Günter Litfin's brother Jürgen turned the tower into a memorial to him, and in 2017 the Berlin Wall Foundation took it over. The Foundation lists the building in its directory of surviving traces as MAU-002, the command post on the Spandau ship canal. Two elements of the hinterland wall survive around the corner on Kieler Straße, kept when the street was rebuilt and now overgrown as a garden wall (MAU-038).
How did it get here?
Original structure in place. The memorial was established by Litfin's brother Jürgen and is now run by the Berlin Wall Foundation.
Sources
Sites — Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation) ↗
The Foundation's own listing of the sites it runs and documents, with addresses and what survives at each.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-002 Führungsstelle Kieler Eck — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
The command post on the Spandau ship canal at Kieler Straße, converted after reunification by Jürgen Litfin, brother of the first person shot at the Wall, into the Günter Litfin memorial, and taken over by the Berlin Wall Foundation in 2017; catalogued as MAU-002.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-038 Hinterlandmauer Kieler Straße — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
Two concrete elements of the hinterland wall kept during the rebuilding of Kieler Straße, now forming an overgrown property wall; catalogued as MAU-038.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
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