Workers removed a field of crosses at Berlin's former Checkpoint Charlie yesterday after a privately run museum lost its court battle over the memorial to those killed at the East German border during the Cold War.
Workers in blue overalls and yellow raincoats began unscrewing the 1,067 crosses after covering the plaques with the victims' names and carrying them away, and tore down part of the wall around the memorial.
"No, no, you have to listen to me," said museum director Alexandra Hildebrandt, imploring the court bailiff without effect as the workers arrived at the site and began work.
Several hundred protesters gathered at the former crossing point between East and West Berlin, jeering and whistling derisively in the rain.
"Remember, Don't Forget" read one sign. Several people shouted, "Betrayers of the fatherland!"
Four men briefly chained themselves to crosses but unchained themselves after police spoke to them.
"We unchained ourselves voluntarily because this is not supposed to escalate, but we feel a lot of anger," said one of them, Juergen Breitbarth.
The museum had been given until yesterday to raise US$43 million to purchase the land where it erected the memorial last October but failed to reach that goal.
The museum had been leasing the land from the Hamm-based BAG bank but its agreement expired at the end of last year, and a court ordered the memorial removed.
The memorial consists of a rebuilt section of the Berlin Wall and heavy wooden crosses representing the museum's tally of the people killed at the East German border from 1961 to 1989.
People who fled communist East Germany risked being shot dead by the country's border guards.
The adjacent Checkpoint Charlie museum -- Berlin's second busiest with 700,000 visitors last year -- is not in any jeopardy.
Named "Charlie" from the phonetic alphabet -- checkpoints "Alpha" and "Bravo" were elsewhere in Berlin -- the checkpoint was established by the US Army in 1961 after East Germany closed its border.
It was the main crossing where foreign tourists, diplomats and military personnel used to enter and leave the Soviet sector of the divided city, with multi-lingual signs warning in large black letters: "You are leaving the American sector."
The land today is in a high-rent downtown district, but because of the historical significance of the site, Hildebrandt has ruled out the option of erecting the memorial on cheaper land elsewhere.
Hildebrandt said she would put the crosses in storage and continue her efforts to buy the land.
"The crosses will have to await their time until they can be put back," she said.
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