Profits from selling off the Berlin Wall intended for East German charities instead flowed into a former communist trading company and disappeared, dpa cited a German historian as claiming Today. The sale of painted Wall segments raised almost two million Deutschmarks (1 million euros) at a single auction in Monaco in 1990, historian Ronny Heidenreich told Cicero magazine. But most of the revenue - which was to be spent on charity projects in East Germany, disappeared from the accounts of Limex and another company - LeLe Berlin. Heidenreich suggests that millions of dollars in revenue lined the pockets of those involved with East German trading company Limex, which the East German state had charged with the sale of what it called the "anti-fascist protective wall." Limex was disbanded during German reunification, and LeLe Berlin vanished at the start of the 90s, along with much of the profit from the sale of the Wall. East German border guards, whose job had been to fire at people attempting to cross the Wall, showed no scruples in flogging old signs, fencing and armaments when the border posts were dismantled, Heidenreich told the German Press Agency dpa. After reunification in October 1990, the German government in Bonn sold further chunks of the Wall, contributing six million Deutschmarks to state funds. The historian came across the information in his research on a book about the Berlin Wall to be published in September.
