The record
A segment fetched from Berlin on a low-loader by the photographer whose work twinned an Italian town with a Berlin district, over the execution of a German officer who helped the Resistenza.
Hans Schmidt was born in 1914 in what is now the Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick. Stationed in Italy in 1944 as a young German officer, he and four other soldiers made contact with the Italian resistance. They were betrayed; Schmidt was condemned to death by a German court martial and executed. On 25 March 1995 the northern Italian commune of Albinea made him an honorary citizen posthumously.
The story was documented by the photographer and amateur historian Mario Crotti, whose exhibition on the resistance in Albinea was shown in Treptow a year later and opened the way to a town twinning. Crotti had other Berlin connections. In 1963 he met three refugees from East Berlin in Albinea, who described the divided city to him; he went to Germany and photographed life with the Wall, and the work was shown across Italy. He returned after the border opened and made a photo-reportage about the city that was walled in, which was exhibited at Treptow town hall and then in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and as far as Australia.
It was Crotti's idea to put a segment in his own town. The district mayor of Treptow, Siegfried Stock, supported it, and in September 1999 Crotti drove to Berlin with a low-loader and was handed one. It had stood near a children's farm on Adalbertstraße in Kreuzberg, in West Berlin, and still carries traces of graffiti by Christophe Bouchet and Thierry Noir. A year later it was given its place in front of the Albinea primary school and inaugurated on 28 October 2000 with representatives of both administrations present. A small plaque describes it as a symbol of peace and of the hope of peaceful coexistence.
In October 2023 the comune lent it for four months to the Fondazione Palazzo Magnani's exhibition on the band CCCP at the Chiostri di San Pietro in Reggio Emilia, where it stood outside the cloisters among chevaux de frise. The loan was extended to 10 March 2024, and the mayor, Nico Giberti, said that when the exhibition closed it would come home to the school.
How did it get here?
Given by the Berlin district of Treptow and collected in person from Berlin by Mario Crotti in September 1999; previously sited near a children's farm on Adalbertstraße in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #133 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #6.
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
Hans Schmidt's execution and 1995 honorary citizenship, Mario Crotti's exhibitions and the resulting twinning with Treptow, his collection of the segment in September 1999, its earlier position on Adalbertstraße in Kreuzberg, the Bouchet and Noir graffiti, and the inauguration outside the primary school on 28 October 2000.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Il Muro di Berlino trasloca per quattro mesi ai Chiostri di San Pietro per la mostra “Felicitazioni! CCCP – Fedeli alla Linea” ↗
The comune's own account, 4 October 2023: the segment given by its twin district in Berlin in 1999, which Mario Crotti fetched from Berlin by lorry, has stood in front of the Pezzani primary school; it was lent for four months to the CCCP exhibition at the Chiostri di San Pietro in Reggio Emilia, and the mayor said it would return when the exhibition closed.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Il nostro Muro di Berlino resterà a Reggio fino al 10 marzo ↗
The comune extended the loan to the Reggio Emilia exhibition to 10 March 2024.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
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 133
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 6
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
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