A New Section of the Berlin Wall has Just Been Discovered – Here's What to Know

The extra section of concrete was discovered in Südpanke Park, right next to Germany’s Federal Intelligent Services, whose agents, quite comically, never detected the section of undiscovered wall that had been sitting right under their noses. Rather, it was discovered by Ephraim Gothe, a city councilor in Berlin-Mitte, who was on a neighborhood walking tour in the area. The Berlin Wall Foundation was then contacted to verify the legitimacy of the artefact, and to confirm that the remains signified a 20-meter (66-foot) addition to the Berlin Wall.

Why was this part of the wall not discovered until now? Besides being covered in greenery, the section actually made up the preliminary border that stood between Berlin’s infamous ‘death-strip’ and what used to be East Berlin, instead of being part of the more obvious barrier that divided the city into East and West.

Another part of German history has been unearthed, and this part of the wall has already been named a historical monument and placed under protection.

The Berlin Wall was completed in 1961 and torn down in 1989. The most popular places to see its remains today are the tourist hot-spots of the graffiti-covered East Side Gallery, Mauerweg in Prenzlauer Berg, and the reconstruction of Checkpoint Charlie near the city center. Earlier this year, it came to light that a local historian named Christian Bormann had stumbled upon a whopping 80-meter (262-foot) section of the wall in 1999, and had kept his discovery a secret for almost two decades.

According to the Berlin Wall Foundation, it’s plausible that there are still many smaller sections of the wall hidden around Germany’s capital that have not yet been accounted for. So if you’re walking around the city, keep your eyes open—you never know what you may find!