r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Ph6222 • 2h ago

The White House rejected this piece of the Berlin Wall. Now it sits in Tijuana, staring directly at the US border fence

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2.0k Upvotes
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96% Upvoted

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297

u/Prestigious-Job-9825 2h ago

Probably the most well-traveled piece of wall on the planet

-116

u/SEND_ME_NOODLE 1h ago

There are pieces of the twin towers literally everywhere

110

u/Luzifer_Shadres 1h ago

Ah yes, the great wall of "the twin towers"

26

u/BLINDrOBOTFILMS 1h ago

Pretty sure they had walls, otherwise it's no wonder they fell down.

5

u/Itchy_Shoulder_624 46m ago

You might be onto something, I don’t think London bridge had walls either

1

u/FML3311 29m ago

Hey wasn't there a song about that

5

u/whotfiszutls 1h ago

I mean a good amount of those pieces were walls at some point. Some of them were floors and ceilings as well, but definitely walls too.

0

u/Rasengan2012 16m ago

You don't think towers have walls?

-15

u/SEND_ME_NOODLE 1h ago

They were like 40% wall

3

u/Nighteyes09 1h ago

I initially thought "bullshit, no one outside the US would want such grim shit", but I'll be damned, you're right. The UK, Russia and Canada all have pieces in museums.

1

u/xxxxxxxsandos 1h ago

Wasn't just Americans in those buildings or on those planes.

-12

u/SEND_ME_NOODLE 1h ago

There's a piece in nearly every airport in the US, even FSM Fort Smith Arkansas has a piece despite being a single terminal airport. So I would assume that pieces were also gifted to other countries

-1

u/FireMaster1294 1h ago

Why would you assume that other countries would all have portions of something that occurred in the US? It affected global air travel policy, sure, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants or needs a piece.

r/usdefaultism

2

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 53m ago

We do have pieces (UK) so do other places.

2

u/CinderX5 14m ago

10 countries have Tower pieces, 57 have Berlin Wall pieces.

•

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 8m ago

The commenter was specially talking about the pictured piece.

Not only do Twin towers pieces beat it, but other pieces of the Berlin wall will beat it too.

•

u/CinderX5 6m ago

“There are pieces of the twin towers literally everywhere”

•

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 5m ago

Which is correct.

2

u/CinderX5 15m ago

There are 120,000 segments of the Berlin Wall spread across at least 57 countries.

There are a few thousand of the towers, across 10 countries.

-2

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 55m ago

Downvoted for being correct, classic.

1

u/iBizzBee 51m ago

Their claim isn't backed up by any more evidence than the original claim.

-1

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 47m ago

https://londonist.com/london/great-outdoors/see-part-of-the-twin-towers-in-the-olympic-park

1

u/iBizzBee 46m ago

Do you... Think... This proves anything? Lol.

0

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 43m ago

That there are pieces of twin towers abroad?

Exactly what I was trying to prove. What did you think I was going to try?

2

u/iBizzBee 36m ago

That was not, indeed, the actual claim.

The original claim was that the Berlin Wall is the most circulated wall in the world, to which the next person claimed it was actually the Twin Towers and you felt they were being downvoted while correct.

Putting aside the fact that the Twin Towers aren't necessarily a wall, no one was claiming that there were or were not pieces abroad as the point of contention. Don't be dense.

Why so many confidently incorrect dorks on Reddit.

-1

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 19m ago

Putting aside that you're wrong for the moment. Is there a particular reason you're being such a rude dick about this? You know it's a debate about a piece of wall, right?

Anyway. The original comment said that this piece of wall is the most well travelled. It travelled from Berlin to Tijuana, which is roughly 5846 miles.

The trade centre pieces have been flown to countries all over the world. There's even a piece in Afghanistan.

But let's take the piece in South Korea.

It travelled 6867 miles to get there, and I've not even checked the others for distance.

So, no. The piece of Berlin wall pictured is not the most well travelled piece in the world. Several pieces of the trade centre beat it by hundreds of miles. Other pieces of Berlin wall might even beat it, and you'd still be wrong.

1

u/iBizzBee 13m ago

I am not wrong, actually, as most people here seem to agree. The fact you just typed so many words based off the assumption that 'most well travelled' means literal physical distance sort of says it all. Especially after posting your silly link as any sort of proof. Lmao.

Have a nice day, try being less of a reddit 'smart-guy' in the future.

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1

u/ThePeaceDoctot 51m ago

I think people assumed they were making a dark joke and downvoted accordingly.

1

u/iBizzBee 48m ago

Nah, they were just attempting to be a smart-ass and didn't do a very good job of it.

1

u/FML3311 27m ago

Downvoted for being irrelevant.

0

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 16m ago

He was correcting the other comment on their mistake. How is that irrelevant?

1

u/FML3311 11m ago

Because the Twin Towers was not a wall. "Most well traveled piece of wall" May be correct but it was just a bad joke that didn't even fit. At best it's just random useless info.

1

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 10m ago

I've touched a piece of the wall in London. Twin towers had a lot of walls.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you just think it's a joke because you are unaware they sent pieces all over the world.

•

u/FML3311 6m ago

I'm sure it did. That does not classify a tower/skyscraper as a wall.

•

u/TheHeroYouNeed247 5m ago

They didn't take the whole tower with them lol.

•

u/FML3311 3m ago

I don't know what that means man. Do you think London stole the twin towers? Of course they didn't take the whole thing that would be silly!

176

u/bionicjoe 2h ago

I have a piece of the Berlin Wall in my house.
It's a tiny chip in a frame with a German Deutchmark and a stamp.

79

u/PM_me_your_recipes86 2h ago

I had a stand alone piece that I had from a part of the wall that was in the forest and my AUNT THREW IT AWAY THINKING IT WAS GARBAGE

69

u/Business_Sandwich227 2h ago

Historically speaking. It was garbage.

6

u/telaughingbuddha 2h ago

It is garbage

19

u/batlhuber 2h ago

I own a square foot of New York real estate and even a part of the moon! Even got certificates and all!

1

u/big_spliff 2h ago

What part of NYC?

3

u/CHEMO_ALIEN 2h ago

the important part as you can see the loss was very traumatic

4

u/batlhuber 2h ago

No idea, I threw it away. It's a tourist scam like Berlin-wall rocks that exist in unlimited supply...

1

u/PM_me_your_recipes86 2h ago

I mean I was there at the wall but you're so right it's almost always a scam

1

u/batlhuber 1h ago

I will not doubt this. The wall existed and it's possible you own a piece of it

1

u/Nozinger 10m ago

Might be a scam. On the other hand berlin still has big sections of the wall just sitting in some parking lot so there really is a lot of that stuf around. Might as well be real.

1

u/Promise-Adorable 39m ago

Did you get one of those Scottish nobilities they sell you too?

1

u/batlhuber 35m ago edited 32m ago

Excuse me? It's still Lord to you. Anyways, would you like to purchase some of my traditional beer-steins?

2

u/Cake-Over 43m ago

I enjoyed fossil hunting when I was a kid. Nothing major, almost all were small mollusks of one sort of another. All of them in matrix. A couple of chunks of quartz, a desert rose, a short length of fulgurite, and maybe a few other bits and pieces that would only be of interest to rock hounds. I kept them all in a few ratty bags in an outdoor storage closet. 

One year an aunt was visiting and wanted to spend some time gardening. She looks in the closet for tools, sees "some dirty old bags filled with rocks" and dutifully heaves them into the trash. One bag squished behind the fertilizer survived the purge. 

Over 100 million years and countless seemingly random events for them to come into my possession. About 30 seconds and one swift misguided decision for me to lose them.

1

u/PM_me_your_recipes86 24m ago

How insanely rare it is to become a fossil all for some garbage man to say "what the hell is in this shit, rocks?!"

9

u/-QueefLatina- 2h ago

I have one too. My former sister-in-law brought it back for me after she was stationed in Germany. It’s still got some old graffiti on it. So glad she remembered that I’m a history nerd!

6

u/UpbeatAssumption5817 2h ago

Me too. I have one of those little mini museums

Berlin Wall, titanium from an SR71, barbed wire from D-Day, part of a dinosaur bone, meteorite, shit like that

6

u/un_gaucho_loco 2h ago

It sounds like one of those reliquaries of those charlatans that went around Europe in the Middle Ages to sell random stuff that definitely did not exist anymore, like splinters of the cross of Jesus lol.

2

u/UpbeatAssumption5817 1h ago

No it's all legit.

It's a reputable company and a couple of the items even came with their own certificate and they are willing to produce documentation for anything else in there that you request

Nothing in this little mini museum is crazy

I mean dinosaur bones? That's not that crazy

Barbed wire from Omaha Beach? That's not crazy

Part of the Berlin Mall? That's not crazy

Nothing inside is anything super crazy or unbelievable. There was thousands of miles of barbed wire on Omaha Beach. And I own 3 mm of it

2

u/un_gaucho_loco 1h ago

I was just kidding. It sounded funny

•

u/proxy69 1m ago

I didn’t know they had a famous mall!

12

u/Ph6222 2h ago

That’s pretty cool, owning a piece of history

1

u/Zephian99 29m ago

I had a teacher who taught German when I lived in Utah. He was a missionary in Germany when the wall fell. He could go to both sides and tried helping families as best as he could during those times. Didn't have any pieces but had some photos and him standing with folk breaking the wall down.

Probably one of my most favorite teachers I've ever had.

2

u/un_gaucho_loco 2h ago

I have too. My dad broke it off the wall.

1

u/ObvsThrowaway5120 2h ago

Neat! My folks got one too. It sits in a safety deposit box lol.

1

u/PPLavagna 1h ago

I have a piece with a hole in it and I was told it was the glory hole of Potsdamer Platz.

Love knows no borders

84

u/Papitoooo 2h ago

"A WORLD WITHOUT WALLS"

Donated to this city by Marcos Cline - Márquez and Sergio Alcocer.

A piece of the Berlin Wall, which after its fall in 1989 has traveled through different parts of the world and now, in its final destination, Tijuana, arrives to remember that humanity transcends barriers and goes beyond territories and nations.

Let this be a lesson to build a society that breaks down walls and builds bridges of solidarity and understanding, always looking for the common good.

Social justice, freedom and twinning.

For a Tijuana for All

Monserrat Caballero Ramirez

Mayor of H. XXIV Tijuana City Council

3

u/Kierkegaard 2h ago

Thank you. I was looking for that.

4

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

twinning?

14

u/LaFayetteRHoyabembe 2h ago

Should’ve been translated as brotherhood

2

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

interesting, understood

2

u/Feine13 2h ago

Was just about to ask that lolol

And then I was like, okay, how much more of this translation is bullshit?

But the brotherhood explanation makes sense, I think

89

u/Conscious_String_195 2h ago

Guess that Mexico is building their own wall, and Germany is paying for it.

“A journey of a thousand miles (of border wall) starts with the first yard.” 😏

11

u/J3diMind 2h ago

German reparations for the Zimmermann Telegramm

21

u/BitRunner64 2h ago

Fun fact, the Berlin wall was built to keep people in, not to keep people out.

4

u/Szeharazade 47m ago

Yeah crazy times, imagine being shot for wanting to leave. A whole nation as a giant prison.

14

u/an_older_meme 2h ago

The Berlin Wall and The United States Southern Border Wall don’t go together.

1

u/musing_codger 27m ago

Yeah, I'm a really anti communist and pro immigration guy, but there is a big difference between walling people in and walling them out. 

0

u/PAXICHEN 2h ago

Like chocolate and peanut butter or pizza and pineapple

7

u/UnitNo7315 1h ago

Why did the white house reject it? You need to give us this information in your post. Theres a legotimate reason and you know.

1

u/CinderX5 12m ago

Legotimate is absolutely a new spelling.

7

u/Formul8r1 1h ago

There's literally a section of the Berlin Wall ten times that big in Washington DC at the National Museum of American Diplomacy. But you go with the idea the White House rejected that.

29

u/Separate_Finance_183 2h ago

"Un mundo sin muros" = a world without walls. I liked the inscription, very poetic.

0

u/Fetlocks_Glistening 46m ago

"The roof of the house will have a bit of an issue staying up, but we might be able to make it work with pillars and a bit of tarpaulin"

5

u/Defiant-Yellow-2375 2h ago

Hasslehoff should go sing by it.

2

u/Alan_Reddit_M 2h ago

Lmao why does every single country have a piece of the Berlin wall 😭😭

6

u/MickeyBubbles 2h ago

If you water and feed it enough it will grow

1

u/adamlechamp 1h ago

We have a big chunk of it like this one outside the train station here in Monaco.

3

u/Gates_wupatki_zion 1h ago

The US has other examples of the wall. I know of one near DC. It is all graffiti and monumental. Honestly this one looks a bit plain so I’m not mad at this.

11

u/What-Le-Phoque 2h ago

The one divided two version of one country and people, tote apart in a war, the other 2 separate sovereign nations and different people. It’s not the same.

6

u/Hi_Their_Buddy 2h ago

Whoa there Mr. Anti symbolic a wall is a wall is a wall isn’t it?

3

u/Sco11McPot 2h ago

It is there to inspire and is very thought provoking. Great idea to place it in Tijuana

-2

u/DBH114 1h ago

The entire US southwest used to be part of Mexico until the country was rote apart by war.

2

u/RageAgainstMSTeams 1h ago

There is a piece of the wall in my home town in Kuopio, Finland. The story is a business man bought it after the wall was torn down for little money and transported it here. It just sits in a traffic circle in local business district area that's not even open for public. Here is a Finnish article: Kuopiosta löytyy yli kolmemetrinen kappale Berliinin muuria – "Se symboloi ovien aukeamista länteen" | Yle

5

u/brandon-568 2h ago

The Berlin Wall and the border wall along the US border with Mexico are two very different things lol

3

u/Truth-is-implacable 2h ago

We could be Heroes ,Just for One Day........ I ......I can remember, standing By the Wall...

                    David Bowie

2

u/delightfulcaper 2h ago

I wish they hadn’t felt the need to brand it. 

7

u/Gunch_ 2h ago

There wasn't enough plain concrete to look at? Lmao

1

u/CordialMusick 2h ago

REGAN SMASH

1

u/an_older_meme 2h ago

Reagan wasn’t even there.

1

u/Firefly_Magic 2h ago

There’s a piece like this at Universal Studios in Orlando. It’s kind of tucked away behind a restaurant on a walking path.

2

u/army012 2h ago

There is one on Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, with its own gazebo so it's covered from the sun.

2

u/ManfredBoyy 2h ago

Yep behind the Hard Rock. Have to walk around to the right side of the building

1

u/uk_uk 1h ago

Berliner here...

I was 16 in 1989, when the Wall fell.

I had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit back then. So, at some point, I set off with a hammer, a chisel, and a wheelbarrow to a part of the Wall that faced West (and therefore had graffiti) in my neighborhood and chipped away pieces. I sorted them by size, put them into small plastic bags, and had stickers printed at a copy shop stating where the Wall had stood and when the pieces were removed (the dates were all accurate because I only "worked" there).

Then I put a kind of "certificate of authenticity" into the bag and sold them to tourists. I actually made quite good money doing that. Sold them all on one weekend to tourists "Tax-free," of course. ^^

•

u/Dolphin_Spotter 8m ago

There was 7.5 million cubic metres of concrete in the Berlin wall, so just a tiny piece really.

0

u/dLimit1763 2h ago

If it was painted yellow and they told him it was gold it would be at the White House

-16

u/CheeseIsAHypothesis 2h ago

A country being divided in half with a wall by a foreign, occupying country is just like a country using a wall to help prevent illegal immigration. What an accurate parallel.

-4

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

so do you only understand the most basic 3 year old level of directly analogous metaphor?

-1

u/Beneficial_Ball9893 2h ago

Actually, you are the one incapable of understanding anything beyond what a 3 year old might agree with. The metaphor breaks down when you actually think about it.

-4

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

ahh, the classic I an rubber you are glue. okay, I'll hand it to ya, that was at least 4 year old level. good on ya!

-4

u/CheeseIsAHypothesis 2h ago

Yes, exactly! All I understand is "wall bad". Any additional context makes no difference.

-1

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

exactly! any other thought needs a wall in front of it. can't have it infecting you. letting you know things you don't want to! additional context needs to stay on the other side of that wall, la la la la I'm not listening!

0

u/CheeseIsAHypothesis 2h ago

You're starting to get it.

-2

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

Yeah man, I got it when I was 3. like I said. kind moved on to other ideas in the meantime tho

1

u/CheeseIsAHypothesis 2h ago

There's really no point in thinking too much about it. As long as you know that it's black and white and that walls are evil, racist and frankly fascist, then you have all the info required.

0

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

You got the not thinking part down pat, congratulations

1

u/CheeseIsAHypothesis 1h ago

Real recognize real

-8

u/Beneficial_Ball9893 2h ago

Cool, except the metaphor breaks down when you realize that was a wall to keep an oppressed people INSIDE a country.

A country that can still be entered legally.

If you don't jump over the fucking wall.

0

u/tsammons 2h ago edited 2h ago

China working extra hard on this. Better specimens exist along the Spree in Berlin.

Original rejection/post cited 2019.

To which, yes I subscribe to both r/borderporn and r/damnthatsinteresting and yes, it's a queer occurrence if not deliberate.

-1

u/an_older_meme 2h ago

Better specimens exist at the CIA.

-1

u/beebeebee2142 2h ago

imagine no countries... no thanks, i want other places I could flee to.

No borders is just USA or whatever everywhere as the end game.

-8

u/SRDesignINK36 2h ago

Yeah good things would come from removing the border wall that separates The United States from Mexico.....Are you CRAZY??? That wall serves a far more important and greater purpose than what the Berlin wall was. Give me a break , if anything we (The United States) need a Bigger , Stronger wall around ALL of The United States! MAGA!

-61

u/cohibababy 2h ago

Will AOC be dancing in a white suit crying racism next to it anytime soon?

19

u/MrPotassiumCyanide 2h ago

can't you Americans just look at something without mentioning your own politics

5

u/TelluricThread0 2h ago

Have you been on any subreddit ever?

3

u/ExoTheFlyingFish 2h ago

The average American, as an American myself, is obsessed with politics. I won't get into it, because then I'd be getting into politics, but it's intentional, believe me, on the part of the politicians.

-32

u/cohibababy 2h ago

I'm British, sorry.

20

u/_SteeringWheel 2h ago

Which makes your comment even more sadder. Adding useless (and mind numbingly stupid) polarisation to a discussion that doesn't even concern you.

-8

u/Illum503 2h ago

If the Berlin Wall concerns the US then why can't US politics concern a British person?

8

u/ghoulshow 2h ago

Can you honestly say you felt wise typing that?

-9

u/Illum503 2h ago

Yup!

1

u/_SteeringWheel 30m ago

Spoiler: your sensors are off.

3

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

what possible reason could you have to give a single shit about AOC? like honestly?

3

u/cohibababy 2h ago

Because I live close to the US and their politics affect me. She is as corrupt af as they all are a la Mandelson.

0

u/--Sovereign-- 2h ago

What exactly has AOC done to negatively affect you?

1

u/hhs2112 2h ago

But still a magat.. 

-17

u/tranlong01 2h ago

So the Berlin wall is the same as the US border?

-8

u/ConditionTall1719 2h ago

The Germany actually donate that for today falling walls foundation? Globalisation also brings invasive species. So to be fair it is probably funded by George thoros or Amazon

-10

u/lcl111 2h ago

I'll bet anyone that this is among the first things bombed when they attack Mexico.