Hello, welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Alex

Echelston.

I'm taking you back to 1982, when a Turkish migrant worker in Berlin nearly sparked an

international incident by building a treehouse on disputed land up against the Berlin wall.

In spring 1982, Osman Kallun was looking for a place to plant a garden in Berlin.

He came across an unused piece of land.

This is his son, Mehmet.

My father was a construction worker, until he had an accident during one construction and

unfortunately lost three of his fingers, so then he had to retire.

After retirement, my father was bored and suddenly he discovered an empty area right next

to St. Thomas Church and closed by to his house.

This piece of land was unusual, that lay on the border of two Berlin districts.

Croatsburg, once the American sector of West Berlin, and Mitter, the central district

of communist East Berlin.

In the middle of the night on the 13th of August 1961, the East German government had begun

erecting a barbed wire fence.

This would eventually become the barriers of the Berlin wall.

It's transformed what were busy crossing points into silent and deserted Kallusaks.

However, the wall did not always follow the line of the border between East and West

exactly.

Here, as the workers followed the curve of the road, they left an awkward jutting section

in the shadow of St. Thomas's church.

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