Berlin Trip : Berlin War Memorial (Concrete of Watchtower)

This is the sort of thing that interests me, although I’m surprised that considerable efforts have been made to preserve it. It had started to snow when I visited and there’s some evidence of that in the photo. I’m pleased that there was an information panel here as otherwise I would have never guessed what it was. I might as well just quote what that said:

“Before observation towers were installed on the border, the border soldiers had to make do with a temporary structure. This kind of temporary guard post with gun slits was erected on Bergstrasse in 1962. It was torn down when the border strip was levelled in 1966/1967. In place of it, a new watchtower was erected at the former Nordbahnhof station between 1967 and 1969.The cement base of the guard post that was placed over the remains of the cemetery well has been preserved.”

More on Sophienfriedhof (Sophien Cemetery) in later posts…. Really here is that I’m saying I was intrigued by a bit of old concrete and merrily stood in the cold and snowy weather to look at it. My friend Liam would be proud of me, he’s a civil engineer and so likes concrete and looking at it (although I think he’s more interested in watching it when it’s being poured rather than finding bits of old concrete to look at). But there’s some proper history there, an East German soldier (who could well still be alive) would have stood and been part of the crew that knocked down a bit of the cemetery wall to pour that concrete to build their temporary guard post. It all seems a waste of resources to me, but there we go.