Culture‘A symbol of resistance’: the fight to save treehouse beside Berlin Wall

Supporters are campaigning to preserve the Treehouse at the Wall, a ramshackle two-storey structure on a traffic island beside the former Berlin Wall. They fear it could be demolished as a safety hazard and want it turned into a memorial for postwar foreign labourers, honouring its Turkish creator, Osman Kalin. In 1983, Kalin used the strip of land to grow onions, garlic and cucumbers. Although the site stood in West Berlin, Cold War arrangements officially placed the land under communist East Berlin.

Berlin Walltreehousemigrant labourcultural heritage

TThe Guardian★☆☆☆☆2026-08-01 06:00Original