The record
Thuringia's segment from the Bild distribution of 2009, unveiled in the government quarter on the anniversary of the building of the Wall, with a plaque crediting the newspaper's founder.
A segment 1.20 metres wide and 3.60 metres high, weighing 2.7 tonnes, was set up in Erfurt's government quarter on 13 August 2009, the forty-eighth anniversary of the day the Wall went up, as a gift from Axel Springer AG. The opening was led by the minister-president Dieter Althaus, Bild's editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann, Berthold Dücker — a former refugee from the East and the initiator of the Point Alpha memorial — and the songwriter and former dissident Stephan Krawczyk.
Its plaque calls the concrete the instrument and sign of twenty-eight years of oppression, overcome by the peaceful revolution of 9 November 1989, and is explicit about whose gift it is: from BILD to the Land of Thuringia for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, „in memory of the newspaper's founder Axel Springer (1912–1985), who held on against all resistance to his dream of German unity“. It belongs to the same distribution as the segments beside the Landtag in Stuttgart and on the Platz der Deutschen Einheit in Hamburg.
How did it get here?
A gift from Axel Springer AG (Bild) to the Land of Thuringia, unveiled on 13 August 2009.
Sources
Listed by the Berlin Wall Archive as #116.
Denkmal „Berliner Mauer“ — Orte des Erinnerns ↗
On 13 August 2009 a segment of the Berlin Wall, a gift of Axel Springer AG, 1.20 m wide, 3.60 m high and 2.7 tonnes, was set up in Erfurt's government quarter at Werner-Seelenbinder-Straße 5–8; the opening was led by the minister-president Dieter Althaus, the Bild editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann, Berthold Dücker (former refugee and initiator of the Point Alpha memorial) and the songwriter and dissident Stephan Krawczyk; the full text of the plaque, a gift from BILD to the Land of Thuringia for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in memory of Axel Springer.
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 116
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
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