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Transporting the Wall from Germendorf to Finland

© Lutz Busse / Landkreis Oberhavel

In 1990, road and paving contractor Klaus Grunske, crushed hundreds of tonnes of the Berlin Wall in Germendorf, just north of Berlin. His company had been given the contract to dismantle the barrier installation at the border to Brandenburg at Glienicke and Hohen Neuendorf. However, Grunske did not grind all of the segments for building materials, but preserved some for future use. One of the segments found its new home in the southern Finnish city of Tampere. In September 2007, Timo Nieminen, mayor and president of the Finnish Association of Municipal Councils, paid a visit to his colleague, Karl-Heinz Schröter, county commissioner for Oberhavel and vice president of the districts of Germany. Between carrying out inspections for nature conservation and infrastructure project planning, Nieminen learned of the leftover Wall pieces in Germendorf. Klaus Grunske gave a piece of the Wall to his Finnish visitor, and he planned to put it on display at the Museum Centre Vapriikki in Tampere.

Schröter took the piece of Wall with him as a gift on his visit to Tampere on 22^nd May 2008. At the official handing over ceremony, Schröter pointed out that Finland was a good location for the Cold War relic due to Finland’s intermediary role between East and West and above all due to the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, which had been of great significance to many GDR citizens. The latter especially, since despite the internally agreed freedom of movement, which had the backing of the GDR government, the Wall divided the two German states, Europe and the world for another 14 years. Many citizens of the present-day district of Oberhavel had their own encounters with the Wall – the southern border to West Berlin ran through the region and was a heavily guarded prohibited zone for decades.

Unveiling the Wall in Tampere

© Landkreis Oberhavel / Annemarie Reichenberger

It was not possible to find out exactly where the section of Wall was permanently put up in the Museum Center Vapriikki – an expansive former machine factory on the outskirts of Tampere.