The record
A three-tonne gift of the Berlin Senate on the grounds of the former American lookout over the Fulda Gap, whose board ties the Wall to the fortifying of the whole frontier between the two Germanys.
Point Alpha was one of the US Army's observation posts on the inner-German border. It was set up in 1945 on the Rasdorfer Berg in the Hessian Rhön, directly on the American–Soviet demarcation line, and from 1972 was manned by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the „Black Horse“, watching the Fulda Gap through which Western planners expected a Soviet attack to come. The army gave it up in 1992. It is now a memorial, run since 2008 by the Point Alpha Stiftung, whose founders include the states of Hesse and Thuringia, the two counties and the two neighbouring towns of Rasdorf and Geisa.
An original segment of the Berlin Wall stands on the memorial's grounds. Its information board, as the Federal Foundation's memorials database records it, gives it as 1.20 metres wide, 3.60 metres high with its base and three tonnes in weight, and as a gift from the Berlin Senate. The board also makes the case for showing it here, far from Berlin: the building of the Wall in August 1961 began the massive fortification of the roughly 1,400-kilometre inner-German border, and its opening in November 1989 soon brought down the rest of the Iron Curtain. The foundation itself mentioned the piece in September 2026, as a symbol of the end of the Cold War and of freedom won.
Neither source says when the Senate's gift arrived.
How did it get here?
A gift from the Berlin Senate to the Gedenkstätte Point Alpha; the date is not given.
Sources
Listed by the Berlin Wall Archive as #328.
Gedenkstätte Point Alpha — Orte des Erinnerns ↗
The history of Observation Point Alpha on the Rasdorfer Berg from 1945 to its abandonment by the US Army in 1992, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment („Black Horse“) from 1972 and the Fulda Gap; the Point Alpha Stiftung as operator since 2008, founded by Hesse, Thuringia, the Fulda district, the Wartburgkreis, Geisa and Rasdorf; and the text of the information board at the original Berlin Wall segment on the memorial's grounds: 1.20 m wide, 3.60 m high with base, 3 tonnes, a gift of the Berlin Senate, with the Wall's construction in 1961 marking the start of the massive expansion of the roughly 1,400 km inner-German border and its opening in 1989 the fall of the rest of the Iron Curtain.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Eine Mauer für die Welt – über Inszenierung und Marketing der Berliner Mauer — Point Alpha Stiftung ↗
A report of 8 September 2026 on a lecture by the historian Ronny Heidenreich at the memorial, noting that a piece of the Wall stands directly at the Gedenkstätte Point Alpha as a symbol of the end of the Cold War and of freedom won.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Point Alpha, HE — The Wall Net ↗
One segment of the Berlin Wall among the exhibits on the open-air grounds of the Point Alpha memorial.
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 328
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
No 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