Gesche Würfel is the author of the book The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall. She was born in Germany and lives in New York.
Q: What inspired you to create The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall?
A: In 1987, when I was a child, I traveled with my family to visit my parents' friends in West Berlin. Naturally, we went to see the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which left a lasting impression on me. As a child, I was particularly overwhelmed by its size and presence.
I often wondered why the Wall was constructed to divide a city, what it was like to live in West Berlin surrounded by the Wall, and what was happening behind it in East Berlin.
While my family had no relatives in the GDR (German Democratic Republic--also known as East Germany), one of my school friends did. She shared many stories about her family visits and brought back magazines and candy from East Berlin, which I eagerly listened to.
I learned about the citizens of the GDR breaching the Berlin Wall on TV at home in Bremerhaven on November 9, 1989. This moment is one of the most memorable events of my life, and I tear up every time I hear about it. The following day, I would have loved to catch the train to Berlin, but that wasn't possible since I was only 13.
In the summer of 1990, I traveled with my family to Wismar and Schwerin, my first and last trip to the GDR since it would officially end on October 3, 1990, when reunification occurred.
When I turned 16, I began making annual trips with a friend to visit her uncle in Berlin, and I have been fascinated by the city ever since my first visit in 1987. In the years that followed, I made many more trips to the so-called new federal states and to Central and Eastern Europe.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: To spend the year in Berlin, I had to organize my own funding, which I did during the pandemic, in fall 2020. After many socially distanced walks and intense conversations with two former colleagues from UNC Chapel Hill, I wrote an extensive research proposal outlining the project design.
I received fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany (Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung) in the spring of 2021 to support the creation of my project.
The goal of it was to explore Germany’s reunification post-1990. Germany has one political and economic system, but new divisions and hostilities have emerged during reunification. I wanted to probe those divisions with photography and guided interviews by investigating the Berlin Wall Trail.
The focus was on architecture, nature, and people that allowed me to locate spaces where the remnants of the Wall are still present, spaces where the physical division of the Wall has ceased to exist, and spaces where the mental construct of the Wall persists.
I divided my project into three different parts:
For the first part, a conceptual approach, I cycled along the Berlin Wall Trail, starting from and ending at the Brandenburg Gate. The Berlin Wall Trail extends around former West Berlin and is 160 kilometers (99 miles) long.
I stopped every 2.8 kilometers (1.7 mi.)—in a nod to the 28-year history of the Wall—and photographically recorded those places where the divided city used to be a reality. I took six photos at each location (front, back, left, right, sky, and ground) and combined them later on in Photoshop to create 61 composites.
Since I didn’t grow up in Berlin, it was important to me to talk to people who experienced the construction of the Wall and/or have lived with it.
Therefore, I interviewed and portrayed 28 Berlin and Brandenburg residents about their personal recollections of the Wall and German reunification. Half of the interviewees were born in the former GDR, the other half in the former FRG (Federal Republic of Germany - also known as West Germany), in Turkey, and in the U.S.
Some of the interviewees I met during my bicycle tours along the Berlin Wall Trail or at events related to the Wall; some I reached out to in writing; some were former guest workers, others former political prisoners.
I interviewed a resident advisor for Vietnamese contract workers, representatives from the cultural and religious sector, the initiator of the Berlin Wall Trail and staff from memorial sites. To connect with the latter was a requirement of my fellowship from the Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung.
Lastly, I invited visitors of my exhibition “The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall” at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in spring 2022 to participate. For the interviews, I asked the interviewees to bring along objects or photos relating to the Berlin Wall or reunification. Through these conversations, I trace the history of reunification.
To add historical perspective, I gathered materials from the Stasi Records Archives, the East German secret police. From 134 panoramic images, I cut out the front and hinterland walls, the death strip, and collaged the remaining parts to envision new landscapes without the Wall.
The 23 collages are composed according to different criteria, such as location or formal details. In other collages, I juxtaposed the countryside with the cityscape.
One thing that struck me the most was that the migrant perspective of the former guest (West Berlin/FRG) and contract workers (East Berlin/GDR) has only recently started to be considered in the discourse surrounding remembrance.
The workers had to navigate many uncertainties, not knowing whether they had the right to stay and work or whether they had to return home. Many of them were pushed out of the labor market.
Additionally, politicians tightened immigration laws. Migrants faced a tremendous amount of racism, and there were mounting numbers of murders in the 1990s.
While significant progress has been made in many areas since 1990, differences between East and West continue to exist in areas such as economic strength, wages, and pensions. Although the physical division of the Wall no longer exists, the Wall as a mental construct persists, even 36 years after reunification.
Q: What do you see as some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about the Berlin Wall?
A: When most people think of the Berlin Wall, they usually picture the 26.8-mile-long inner-city Wall with concrete slabs facing former West Berlin. However, two-thirds of the Wall extended through suburban areas, along rivers, lakes, parks, and through forests.
Most people also don't consider that the Wall consisted of concrete slabs on the Western side (Vorderlandmauer), the hinterland or inner Wall (Hinterlandmauer) on the Eastern side, and the death strip in between that was up to 328 ft wide.
The latter comprised, among others, the GDR troops' border patrol road (Kolonnenweg), 302 observation towers, trip wires, steel spikes set in concrete, and dog runs. The Berlin Wall Trail that I cycled along for my project follows the GDR troops' patrol road and the West Berlin customs route.
Most of the images we have seen of the Berlin Wall were taken from the Western side. GDR citizens were not allowed to photograph the Wall, or otherwise, they would have faced harsh penalties. Therefore, only very few images of the Wall taken by GDR citizens exist.
The primary source of photographs of the Eastern side of the Wall is the Stasi, the East German intelligence service and secret police, which documented every inch of it. They took photos to control and monitor the border fortifications and to observe the Western side.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall focuses on encounters and exchange. It encourages listening, engaging with strangers and foreigners, and forming new or different perceptions of a person. This book aims to inspire people to approach others with openness and curiosity.
Especially now—when many countries, including Germany, are turning inward, isolating themselves, and rejecting the concept of “the other” amid rising right-wing radicalism, the belittlement of individuals whose families come from other places, and threats to democracy—it is crucial to remain human.
Moreover, I want readers to understand that German reunification is an ongoing process, one that will take many more years to come.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have just started a new project addressing the impacts of climate change on Lower Manhattan, but I can’t reveal any details yet.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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