When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, crowds immediately began chipping away at the concrete barrier — the amateur dismantlers were nicknamed Mauerspechte (“wall woodpeckers”). By June 1990 most of the structure had been removed by bulldozers; only a few stretches remain in official places such as the Berlin Wall Memorial and the East Side Gallery. Yet fragments keep turning up in museums, souvenir shops, hotels and on postcards and fridge magnets, raising the question: are these pieces real?
Not everything on offer is genuine. Some imitations are made from plaster, says Julian Sacha. Still, many of the chunks sold in and around Berlin are authentic. Julian and his brother Sebastian run Urban Products Sacha Ltd. in Reinickendorf, the city’s main supplier of original Wall fragments. The business began in 1992 after Sebastian’s father-in-law acquired a large number of slabs and started breaking them up for sale.
Urban Products supplies a major souvenir chain in Berlin and ships fragments worldwide, with most buyers in the US, UK and China. Pieces supplied by the company have also been sold alongside the touring exhibition “The Berlin Wall. A World Divided,” which has been showing around Europe since 2024. To make items more attractive to buyers, the firm often spray-paints sections in bright colors; prices start at about €9.90 and most pieces are sold with a certificate of authenticity. Even the German parliament has purchased fragments.
Sacha says the company still holds roughly 40–45 sections in storage — around 30 whole slabs and another 10–15 already broken up for sale. Original Wall slabs were about 3.6 metres high and 1.2 metres wide, and many of those removed in 1989–90 were shipped around the globe; the current whereabouts of a number of slabs are unknown. With demand for concrete keepsakes declining in recent years, Urban Products has been shifting its range toward vintage tin signs, key rings and other smaller mementos.
This article was translated from German.