The record
Two painted segments a travel company set in the garden of the windmill it had bought as its Oldenburg office, to remind its customers that travel is freedom.
The Oldenburger Mühle, the windmill in the Tweelbäke district of Oldenburg that the Nordwest-Zeitung calls the Senfmühle, has belonged since 10 January 2020 to Höffmann-Reisen, a travel company from Vechta. The firm restored it as a second office, with rooms for meeting travellers before and after their trips, and opened its garden to cyclists as a resting place, with a picnic and barbecue area and a public toilet.
In August 2020 the paper watched the second of two original segments set down in that garden. One carries the flag of the GDR, the other a portrait of John F. Kennedy; the words Reisen and Freiheit, travel and freedom, are painted across them, and the steel reinforcement shows through the concrete. The managing director, Hans Höffmann, told the paper that travel is freedom and that his customers should remember it whenever they book. He had had pieces of the Wall at the company's headquarters in Vechta since 1999; a documentary saying there were none left to buy sent him to ask, and he found that there were. School classes, he said, were welcome to come and see them, with a lesson in the mill afterwards.
The Wall Net, a general reference, gives the inscription above the paintings as „Vergessen wir nie – Reisen ist die größte Freiheit“.
How did it get here?
Bought by Hans Höffmann of Höffmann-Reisen in 2020 and set up in the garden of the Oldenburger Mühle in August 2020. Where in Berlin they stood is not recorded.
Sources
Listed by the Berlin Wall Archive as #312.
Teile der Berliner Mauer erinnern an Reise(un)freiheit — Nordwest-Zeitung ↗
A report by Nils Coordes of 14 August 2020: the second of two original pieces of the Berlin Wall set down in the garden of the Oldenburger Mühle in the Tweelbäke district; Höffmann-Reisen had owned the mill since 10 January, restored it and opened the garden to cyclists as a resting place; Hans Höffmann had had pieces of the Wall at the Vechta headquarters since 1999 and bought these two after a documentary said none were left; the graffiti show the GDR flag, John F. Kennedy and the words Reisen and Freiheit; school classes are welcome to see them.
Press reportSource accessed 2026-09-17
Oldenburg, NI — The Wall Net ↗
Two segments at the Oldenburger Senfmühle since 2020 as a symbol of the freedom to travel, set up by the travel entrepreneur Hans Höffmann, with „Vergessen wir nie – Reisen ist die größte Freiheit“ above the GDR flag and the portrait of Kennedy.
General referenceSource 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 312
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