Foam replica of Berlin Wall built to be torn down
In a dark and drafty warehouse, a new Berlin Wall is taking shape.
Nearly 1,000 pieces, each one over 8 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 16 inches thick, have already been crafted. Soon, they will be assembled and become part of a barrier stretching nearly a mile through the historic center of the city along the path of the old Wall, from the Reichstag to the Brandenburg Gate and beyond.
But this Berlin Wall isn't meant to be permanent. It is made of Styrofoam, and it is rising so it can be knocked down again.
As dusk creeps across the German capital on Nov. 9, 20 years to the hour after East Germans first began hammering away at the original concrete Berlin Wall on their way to the West, the first section will be pushed over, and the rest will fall -- like dominoes.
"The day represents great change, for along with the fall of the Berlin Wall many other walls and barriers fell, not only here," says Moritz van Dülmen, the organizer of what is known as the "Dominoaktion."
The breach of the Berlin Wall in 1989 stood world history on its head. Dominoes toppled around the globe, but not in the direction that the West feared during the Cold War. One by one, the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed. The Iron Curtain was dismantled. The Soviet Union disintegrated. Germany reunified. East-West tensions relaxed.
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Nearly 1,000 pieces, each one over 8 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 16 inches thick, have already been crafted. Soon, they will be assembled and become part of a barrier stretching nearly a mile through the historic center of the city along the path of the old Wall, from the Reichstag to the Brandenburg Gate and beyond.
But this Berlin Wall isn't meant to be permanent. It is made of Styrofoam, and it is rising so it can be knocked down again.
As dusk creeps across the German capital on Nov. 9, 20 years to the hour after East Germans first began hammering away at the original concrete Berlin Wall on their way to the West, the first section will be pushed over, and the rest will fall -- like dominoes.
"The day represents great change, for along with the fall of the Berlin Wall many other walls and barriers fell, not only here," says Moritz van Dülmen, the organizer of what is known as the "Dominoaktion."
The breach of the Berlin Wall in 1989 stood world history on its head. Dominoes toppled around the globe, but not in the direction that the West feared during the Cold War. One by one, the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed. The Iron Curtain was dismantled. The Soviet Union disintegrated. Germany reunified. East-West tensions relaxed.