Piece of Cold War history arrives in Marietta

Posted 12:40PM on Friday 7th June 2002 ( 23 years ago )

MARIETTA - Chuck Clay brought home a chunk of the Berlin Wall. But he never imagined he would be bringing home a 10-foot-tall, 2.6-ton section. Thursday night, Clay presented the slab to Marietta city leaders in honor of his grandfather, Marietta native Gen. Lucius DuBignon Clay, who commanded American forces in Europe after World War II and organized the Berlin airlift. Gen. Clay was the American military governor of postwar Germany; Chuck Clay spoke in Berlin last August on the 40th anniversary of the building of the wall. The wall will be permanently displayed in Glover Park or another public space. Chuck Clay said the wall section will remain in storage for the next few weeks as he negotiates with city leaders about where it will be displayed and whether he should lend the section, or simply give it, to the city. For all its historical significance, the wall is only a few inches thick. ``What's surprising about it is that a thin piece of concrete divided a city for 30 years,'' Clay said. ``That almost 1,000 people died trying to cross this thin piece of concrete points out the absurdity of dividing a people by a piece of concrete.'' Clay, a lawyer and former state senator who is seeking to return to the Legislature, said he hopes the fragment will forge economic ties between Berlin and metro Atlanta. A dozen German business and political leaders joined Gov. Roy Barnes at the ceremony Thursday at the Marietta Convention Center. ``I think a lot of people are unaware that Gen. Clay is from Marietta,'' said Betty Hunter, a Marietta City Council member. ``I see it as very significant in building ties and telling part of our history and the history of one of our distinguished citizens.'' Lucius Clay was President Kennedy's ambassador to Berlin in 1961, when the Soviets built the Berlin wall. But history remembers Clay best for organizing the Berlin airlift for 15 months in 1948 and 1949. In June 1948, responding to the unification of the American, British and French zones into a single West German territory, the Communists in East Germany blockaded West Berlin. To keep the city from starving, the American, British and French military flew in 2.3 million tons of supplies in 277,569 flights. At the airlift's peak, 1,383 planes landed in Berlin in a single 24-hour period.

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