4. That night and in the weeks following, East German officials removed pieces of the wall to create more crossing points between East and West. Countless "wall peckers" with hammers and chisels came to take home their own pieces (some to be sold for profit. I bought one of these little pieces for an exorbitant price, but a real, I hope, piece of history.). But most of the wall was left standing.
Official demolition of the wall began in the summer of 1990. It took almost two years to remove all of the border fortifications around Berlin and four years to dismantle them along the full length of East and West Germany's borders.
Even today, hundreds of mines have not been found. In Berlin, a little over a mile of the wall remains, spread out over several sites.
But now, there are more segments of the wall on display in the United States than Berlin.
I've seen two in Missouri, one at a fort and the other at the town where Winston Churchill gave his "Iton Curtain" speech.
--Cooter
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