German Club to build, tear down ‘Berlin Wall’

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the University of Wisconsin–Madison German Club will take it down again.

For the fourth year in a row, the German Club will build a cardboard wall on Library Mall and invite passersby to graffiti messages on the wall and, at the end of the day, help the club tear it down.

This year, the wall will be bigger and better. With funds from the German embassy, the club will build two 30-foot-long walls that are 8 feet high out of cardboard and wooden supports on Friday, Oct 23.

Club members will stand by the wall between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to lend spray paint for the campus to leave their mark and to hand out items the embassy sent that include water bottles, back packs and pens with the logo “Freedom Without Walls.”

“Putting the wall on campus and making it something people can participate in is really moving,” says Laura DeWitt, German Club president and UW–Madison senior. “We spend the day with it as a wall dividing things and then get to take the action of tearing it down.”

There will also be banners and historical displays near the wall.

At 4 p.m. on Oct. 23, the German Club and any other interested parties will tear down the wall with fake sledgehammers provided by the club.

“The wall coming down and the reunification of Germany is one of the most significant events in German culture,” DeWitt says. “It really made Germany what it is today.”

The club will contact local high school German clubs and invite them to the event “not only to get the word out about German Club for future students, but also just to let people know how much of a big deal this year is,” DeWitt says.