The record
The only Grenzmauer 75 preserved as a protected monument at its original position anywhere on the outer ring around West Berlin.
Almost everything in this catalogue is a piece of the inner-city Wall, because that is the part the world photographed and the part that was sold. The border around West Berlin was far longer — the Außenring, running through fields, lakes and suburbs — and of that whole outer ring, the Grenzmauer 75 on the Griebnitzsee shore at Potsdam-Babelsberg is the only stretch preserved as a protected monument where it actually stood.
The Berlin Wall Foundation's directory of surviving traces records what is there: the wall itself and the foundation of a BT-9 watchtower, under monument protection, and separately three artistically painted wall elements standing at the lake.
The shore keeps more than the wall. Concrete posts, stretches of metal mesh fencing, the foundations of observation towers and the Kolonnenweg — the patrol road — are all still readable in the ground, and since 2009 a line of wooden posts along Stubenrauchstraße marks where the Wall ran. Parts of the patrol road have been hedged over by residents whose gardens now run down to the water.
Three memorial steles stand here for people who died at this stretch of border. Peter Böhme and Jörgen Schmidtchen were both killed on 18 April 1962 — one trying to cross, one a border soldier on duty — and Willi Marzahn on 19 March 1966. The Wall is usually recorded as something that killed the people trying to get past it. Two of these three names are on the same date, and one of them was wearing the uniform.
An earlier version of this record said there were six segments, repainted white by a Potsdam conservation firm for a memorial completed on 9 November 2009. That rested on a city press release which potsdam.de has since removed, and no other source read here carries those details, so they have been taken out.
How did it get here?
In place, and protected as a monument. The Foundation's directory records the wall and a watchtower foundation on the shore; how many elements survive is not stated by any source that still resolves.
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 336
Source-reported segments: 6. This is not a separately verified count.
Griebnitzsee — Chronik der Mauer ↗
The fourth-generation Grenzmauer 75 segments at Griebnitzsee as the only ones preserved as a protected monument at their original location on the entire outer ring, the wooden posts marking the wall's course along Stubenrauchstraße since 2009, the surviving concrete posts, mesh fencing, observation tower foundations and Kolonnenweg, the hedging of the patrol road by residents since 2009, and the memorial steles for Peter Böhme and Jörgen Schmidtchen on 18 April 1962 and Willi Marzahn on 19 March 1966.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-068 Grenzmauer 75 und Fundament eines Wachturms am Ufer des Griebnitzsees — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
Grenzmauer 75 and the foundation of a BT-9 watchtower surviving on the shore of the Griebnitzsee, catalogued as MAU-068, recorded as under monument protection and photographed in 2018.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-734 Drei künstlerisch bemalte Mauerelemente am Griebnitzsee — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
Three artistically painted wall elements at the Griebnitzsee, catalogued as MAU-734 and photographed in 2018.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
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