White Crosses, Memorial in Mitte, Berlin, Germany

The White Crosses are seven stone crosses standing along the Spree riverbank beside the Reichstag and bearing the names of 13 people. Information is inscribed on both sides of each cross, providing details about those who died at this location.

The memorial was erected in 1971 to commemorate those who died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. It was built while the city remained divided by the wall and documents the human tragedies of that period.

The crosses are maintained by the private Berliner Bürger-Verein, which set them up in 1971 and still cares for the site. Each cross carries a victim's name and death date on both sides, and one is inscribed "den unbekannten Opfern an der Mauer" for the unknown dead. In 2014 the Zentrum für Politische Schönheit briefly removed the crosses and took them to EU external borders.

The crosses stand on the Spree bank at Friedrich-Ebert-Platz, north-west of the Reichstag, and a second group stands at the corner of Ebertstraße and Scheidemannstraße by the Tiergarten. Both spots are reached on foot from the Bundestag and Brandenburg Gate. Names and death dates are inscribed on both sides of each cross, so walk around them to read all the inscriptions.

One of the seven crosses is specifically dedicated to remembering all unknown victims of the Berlin Wall whose names were lost. This cross stands apart because it honors not individual named people, but all those forgotten whose lives were also taken.