A section of the Berlin Wall was found hiding in plain sight decades after the infamous divider between East and West Berlin was decommissioned, German media outlet Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported on Monday.
The 66-foot-long slab of concrete northwest of central Berlin near the country's Federal Intelligence Service buildings, now covered in graffiti, was part of an outer layer of the wall, built in front of the main wall as an additional defense perimeter, DPA said.
The Berlin Wall Foundation, which oversees the historical legacy of the wall, has confirmed that the structure was indeed part of the historic barrier.
The Berlin Wall was one of the enduring symbols of the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States and its Western allies after World War II.
The socialist German Democratic Republic started constructing the wall that would divide East and West Berlin on Aug. 13, 1961. It would last for 28 years until Nov. 9, 1989.
In 1989, two years after U.S. President Ronald Regan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," the East Germany Communist party chief was ousted, CNN reported. New party chief Egon Krenz announced political and economic changes that led to the border being reopened.
After travel restrictions to the West were relaxed, many residents famously took sledgehammers and pickaxes to the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the end of a divided Germany, CNN said.
Berlin lawmaker Ephraim Gothe announced the discovery of the section of the wall on the 57th anniversary of the wall's construction.
"I was completely surprised that undiscovered parts still exist," Gothe, a council member for Berlin's central Mitte neighborhood, told DPA.
The section of wall, partially obscured by bushes, was discovered by Gothe and a group that stumbled upon it during a recent historical walking tour of the neighborhood.
The Berlin Wall started as a temporary border of barbed wire fencing which would eventually become a fortified concrete barrier with armed East German border guards.
East Germany, supported by the Soviet Union, militarized the entire border with the West, planting more than one million land mines and using about 3,000 attack dogs to dissuade defectors, according to CNN.
The wall within Berlin was nearly 12 feet high and 27 miles long, with 302 guard towers. It was lined with 55,000 land mines and was reinforced with wires, mines, pipes, trenches, and wire-mesh fencing.
The Allies Yalta Conference in 1945 divided Germany into four zones of occupation with Great Britain, France and the United States occupying the western and southern portions, and the Soviet Union occupying the eastern. Berlin, located in Soviet territory, was also divided into east and west zones.
The western and southern zones would become West Germany of the Federal Republic of Germany, while the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
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