

Original parts of the Berlin Wall stand on an area of a construction material company in Teltow, Berlin, on Aug. 11. The German capital is preparing to mark the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, which was erected on August 13, 1961. Markus Schreiber/AP
Children climb on a row of metal rods that delineates the line along which the Berlin Wall used to run at the Berlin Wall memorial site in Bernauer Strasse in Berlin on Aug. 11. On Aug. 13, Germany will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall and commemorate the victims killed at the more than 87 mile-long barrier between West and East Berlin. Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
People look at the map showing the location of the Berlin Wall within the limits of Bernauer Strasse at the memorial site in Bernauer Strasse in Berlin on Aug. 11. Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
The remaining fragment of the Berlin Wall at the memorial site in Bernauer Strasse in Berlin is pictured on Aug. 11. Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
People visit the Berlin Wall memorial site in Bernauer Strasse in Berlin on Aug. 11. The portraits on the wall show people who were killed while trying to escape East Berlin. Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
A combination photo shows tourists posing in front of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg gate in Berlin on June 6, 1989 (l.) and a general view of the Brandenburg gate on July 14, 2009. Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters/File
East Berlin border guards stand atop the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Nov. 11, 1989. Staff/Reuters/File
A tourist from Italy leans against a painted part of the former Berlin Wall named East Side Gallerie on Aug. 9. Markus Schreiber/AP
The sculpture 'Mauerdenkmal 1000' ('Wall memorial 1000') by artist Florian Brauer stands on the so-called 'death strip' (no man's land) at the former Berlin Wall site in Bernauer Strasse on June 16. The sculpture is based on a real-life incident in which East German citizen Peter Fechter attempted to climb the wall to West Berlin and was shot by guards on Aug. 17, 1962. Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
Tourists look through a wall that is part of the former Berlin Wall fortification at the Berlin Wall memorial site in Bernauer Strasse on Aug. 9. Thomas Peter/Reuters
In this Aug. 15, 1961 file photo, East German workers assemble a wall of concrete blocks in the French sector of East Berlin. Eddie Worth/AP/File
German photographer Peter Leibing poses in his home in the northern German village of Oerel, about 100 km south-west of Hamburg on Aug. 15, 2001, as he displays his famous picture of the East German soldier Conrad Schumann jumping over the Berlin Wall. Leibings photograph of the 19-year-old East German border guard throwing away his rifle as he hurled over barbed wire on his way into West Berlin was taken on Aug. 15, 1961, two days after East Germany sealed off its border with the wall. Reuters
A man looks at a giant poster with a historic picture near an original watch tower from the Berlin Wall in Berlin on June 14. The new unveiled picture shows the area shortly after the beginning of the construction of the Berlin Wall. An event at the watch tower, remembers the famous words of former east German leader Walter Ulbricht: 'Nobody has the intention of building a wall' on June 15, 1961. Markus Schreiber/AP/File