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  Ghosts of the Cold War: Berlin Resurrects Vanished Wall with GPS Guide

Ghosts of the Cold War Berlin Resurrects Vanished Wall with GPS Guide

By David Crossland in Berlin

Part 2: 'It's a Shame There's So Little Left'

For tourists, the absence of the Wall is a disappointment.

“It’s a shame there’s so little left but I can understand why they removed most of it. It’s nothing to be proud of," Sjaak Roza, 53, a Dutch tourist, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "You have to take trouble looking for the Wall but if you come prepared you can find it. I remember sitting watching television in 1989 when the Wall came down. It’s something one will never forget."

Mira Kim, 24, a tourist from South Korea taking pictures of a lonely-looking 10-meter segment of the Wall placed amid the modern office towers in Potsdamer Platz square, said: “My own country is divided so it means a lot to me to see the Berlin Wall. There should be more of it to remember.”

The Mauerguide contains an interview with one East Berliner who says: "The Wall was something totally normal for me when I was a child and for a time I thought all countries were divided from each other that way to stop people just going to and fro as they pleased.”

This hopeless sense that the Wall would never come down was common among millions of Germans on both sides of the border in the 1960s, 1970s and right into the late 1980s.

For younger generations, the despair must be difficult to imagine these days. And even many easterners old enough to have lived under the regime have adopted a rose-tinted view of the old communist days, even though the regime persecuted critics, spied on its citizens, encouraged them to snoop on each other and forbade them to visit the West.

This "Ostalgia" emerged partly as a result of the economic slump and job losses that hit the east after its unification with the richer west. The rapid collapse of the region's dilapidated industry left many easterners yearning for the job security and welfare benefits the communist system had provided.

Feature films such as the 2003 hit comedy drama "Goodbye Lenin" which looked back fondly at the communist era, have heightened East Germany’s appeal among younger generations.

"I very much hope that the Mauerguide will help to reverse this trend," said Gültlingen. "People are all too keen to pick the raisins out of East Germany’s history and the suffering of people during that time is being forgotten."

"In our guide we quote people who suffered from this regime, people who lost brothers and sons. We want to keep alive the memory of those who died trying to escape."

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