As anniverary nears, Berliners regret loss of wall.

By Craig Whitlock

BERLIN - Two decades after they triumphantly tore down the infamous wall that divided their city, Berliners are having some regrets. The Germans did such a thorough job of demolishing the hated barrier that visitors to the capital have a hard time finding any trace of it. For years, residents were eager to move beyond a painful chapter in Berlin's history and focused on building a new metropolis for a new century. But as Germany prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the wall's collapse on Nov. 9, many Berliners wish they had left more of the structure intact as a memorial. "In Berlin, there is history under every stone out there. The most deadly mistake we could make is to get rid of it all or cover it up," said Burkhard Kieker, director of Berlin's tourism bureau, which has tried for years to persuade the city to do more to commemorate the wall. "One mistake was to take away too much of the wall. We did the job in a very German way - very organized - and we finished it off, almost completely." After years of resistance, city officials are starting to embrace memories of the Cold War instead of repressing them. They are sprucing up two decrepit sections of the wall that escaped demolition, adding a visitors' center and other exhibits. They also plan a new Cold War museum near Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing where US and Soviet tanks engaged in a tense standoff in 1961, shortly after the wall was built by Communist East Germany to keep its citizens from fleeing to the West. "Memorials and memorial sites in a democracy need to grow, need to ripen and need a public understanding to evolve over time and gain acceptance," said Rainer Klemke, the chief overseer of Berlin's numerous historical sites. "The problem that we have, and what makes it very difficult in contrast to, say, the Mall in Washington, is that we're not commemorating our victories. We're commemorating our acts of shame." In the meantime, crowds flock to the Berlin Wall Trail, a hiking and biking path that was completed in 2006 and follows the contours of the 96-mile-long barrier encircling West Berlin. Restoration has begun on the longest remaining section of the wall, a mural-splashed segment known as the East Side Gallery, which stretches for a mile along the Spree River. Leaders of the push to commemorate the wall have encountered stiff opposition. Alexandra Hildebrandt, owner of the House at Checkpoint Charlie, a private museum that drew 850,000 visitors last year, said the exhibits grate on the nerves of former East German politicians who don't like the way the wall is portrayed as an evil force. "Some people have always tried to shut down our museum, using any means possible," she said. "I don't know why. Actually, I do know why. We show the truth, and they don't like the truth." Hildebrandt riled many in 2004 when she installed a field of white crosses in two vacant lots on the eastern side of Checkpoint Charlie to memorialize people killed trying to cross from East to West. City officials removed the crosses eight months later, saying she had not applied for permits. Easterners accused Hildebrandt of insensitivity. Other critics charged her with sloppy research, saying she exaggerated the number of dead. Hildebrandt accused the city of trying to sanitize the past. In an interview, she scoffed at the city's plan to celebrate the 20th anniversary by toppling a 2-mile-long row of giant Styrofoam dominoes. "Young people will think, 'Okay, the wall was like dominoes'," she said. "All you have to do is push, and it falls down." Markus Meckel, a democracy activist who briefly served as East Germany's foreign minister after the fall of communism, said many East Berliners who fought for freedom are miffed that their role has been marginalized. He said public histories of the collapse of the wall have been shaped by former West German politicians, who largely give themselves credit. He said they often ignore pro-democracy movements behind the Iron Curtain. "There is much misunderstanding, much misperception about that time in Germany," said Meckel, who now serves in Parliament and is a key sponsor of the planned Cold War Museum. "In America, especially, people say, 'We won the Cold War.' But it was not a victory of the West against the East. It was the victory of freedom and democracy in the East." When Berliners joyously began knocking down the wall two decades ago, the Rev. Manfred Fischer was one of the few to argue that some of it should be preserved. "Some of us realized that if everything was gone, we wouldn't have objective proof that the wall happened," he said. "To comprehend, people need to have something to touch." The sharpest resistance came from Sophie Memorial Church, a congregation on the eastern side of the dividing line. The wall had bisected its historic cemetery, including mass graves of people who died in the waning days of World War II. After years of bitter arguments, city officials decided to let the wall stand along two blocks of Bernauer Street, dedicating it as a public memorial. But angry feelings persisted. Members of Sophie Memorial Church saw the memorial as an eyesore. People from the West criticized the lack of educational exhibits. Meanwhile, tourists continued to hammer away at the wall, eager to take home a concrete souvenir. A decade later, the city acknowledged a need to design a new memorial on Bernauer Street. Even then, however, it took three years of negotiations to come up with a design palatable to the neighborhood. The new version will include a visitors' center and outdoor exhibits, including photos of all 136 people who died while attempting to cross the wall between 1961 and 1989. Sophie Memorial Church will be allowed to keep control over its cemetery. The new memorial, now under construction, is slated to open in stages throughout 2011. City officials expect it will draw more than a million visitors a year. Fischer, the Lutheran pastor, said he is pleased. With the passage of time, he said, most people in the neighborhood are now proud to have one of Berlin's few remaining sections of the wall. "People can't get enough of it back," he said. "They wish it was all the way down Bernauer Street." LATWP News Servic

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