Existing comment:
Piece of the Berlin Wall
From a section of the wall located between Potsdammer Strasse and Checkpoint Charlie in the city of West Berlin
In many ways, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 was a reaction to the success of the Berlin Airlift and became the symbol of the vast division which existed between Eastern and Western Europe from 1945 until 1989.
Beginning on 11 November 1989, sections of the Berlin Wall were torn down by the citizens of East and West Germany. Their actions physically recognized the opening of east/west access and reflected a vast change in the political, economic, and cultural nature of Europe and the world.
This piece of the wall commemorates the service of the American airmen who served through the forty-four years of the Cold War and whose presence in Europe surely helped to establish the conditions which finally brought the Berlin Wall down. |