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Angela Merkel and Jens Stoltenberg handing over the Wall pieces in front of NATO headquarters in Brussels on 25 May 2017.
© Kay Nietfeld / dpa / Picture Alliance
On May 25th, 2017, the meeting of NATO heads of state and government took place for the first time at the new headquarters of the Atlantic Alliance on Boulevard Leopold III in Brussels. To mark the occasion, two monuments were inaugurated prior to the actual meeting and are located in front of the main visitors’ entrance. One is a memorial to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11th, 2001, as a result of which the alliance’s case was declared for the first time under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, and the other is two segments of the Berlin Wall. The two sections of the Wall were donated to NATO by the Federal Republic of Germany. At the inauguration ceremony, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave speeches. The two original segments of the Berlin Wall of the type “Grenzmauer 75”, also known as retaining Wall element UL 12.41, were transported from Berlin to Brussels by the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and erected here. They were selected by the German Foreign Office, which was advised by the Berlin Wall Foundation. At the request of the Foreign Ministry, the segments were to be both authentic in terms of their structural condition and representative of the events of 1989/1990. The two segments once had different functions. The segment on the right, which today stands closer to the path and has a graffito of red hands on it, was part of the outer border Wall and marked the direct border with West Berlin. The painting was probably applied before the fall of the Wall and later partially chipped off by “Mauerspechten” (Wall-Woodpeckers). The exact former location of this segment is unknown. The other Wall segment was part of the inner border Wall on the east side and was located in the area between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz.