The Wall Memorial by Stephan Balkenhol for the
Axel Springer Publishing Company Berlin 2009

The Axel Springer publishing company decided to honor its founder, the publisher Axel Springer, with a contemporary outdoor sculpture. This was to pay tribute to his long efforts for a re-unification of the separated Germany. The sculpture was to be erected during the preparations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in front of the publishing house in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

The artist Stephan Balkenhol, with a world-wide reputation for his woodwork, realized this bronze sculpture by appointment of the publishing house.

Historic L-shaped concrete elements  of the Berlin Wall are part of this sculpture that was acquired by the Springer publishing company from the Patrick Lux archive in 2009.

Further segments of this provenance were handed over by the main editorial office of the BILD newspaper to the Minister-Presidents of several federal states. They were placed, among others, in the federal capitals of Bremen, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein and also in Bonn, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Saarbrücken and Stuttgart.