The record
A segment craned into the garden of the museum to the chancellor who was governing mayor of Berlin when the Wall went up — in the only large city on the inner-German border.
The Willy-Brandt-Haus in Lübeck is the museum to the man who was governing mayor of West Berlin on 13 August 1961, when the border was closed, and chancellor when the Ostpolitik that followed from it began. It opened in December 2007 as the Lübeck arm of the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation, in the city where Brandt was born.
A piece of the Berlin Wall stands in the garden. The founding director, the historian Jürgen Lillteicher, has described how it got there: the idea of showing a wall segment came up while the house was still being planned, and the piece was eventually lifted into the garden by crane. He is careful about its status in a museum that otherwise deals in photographs and documents — it is, in his words, one of the few originals there.
The siting argues something the exhibition makes explicitly. Lübeck was the only large city on the inner-German border, forty kilometres of which ran past it, and Brandt remained closely tied to the city as an honorary citizen. A segment of the Berlin Wall in a Lübeck garden puts the two borders in the same frame: the one that divided a city and the one that divided the country, which most accounts keep separate.
How did it get here?
Acquired while the museum was being planned and craned into the garden; the museum opened in December 2007.
Sources & verification
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.
Source accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 236
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
Mein Lieblingsstück: Berliner Mauer — Lübeck verliebt ↗
The wall segment in the garden of the Willy-Brandt-Haus, the founding director Jürgen Lillteicher's account of the idea arising during the planning of the house, the piece being lifted in by crane, and his description of it as one of the few originals in the museum.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Willy-Brandt-Haus Lübeck — Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt Stiftung ↗
The museum as the Lübeck branch of the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation, opened in December 2007, and the themes of the permanent exhibition.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
Our sourcing standardsNo 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