Michael Cramer

Michael Cramer was born on June 16, 1949 in Gevelsberg, Germany. From 1969-1974 he studied education, music and physical education at the university of Mainz. Following his studies, he worked as a secondary-school teacher in the Neukoelln district of Berlin from 1975-1995. In parallel, he got involved in local politics and served as spokesman for transportation issues of the Green Party in the parliament of the Land Berlin (Berliner Abgeordnetenhaus) from 1989 to 2004. Since 2004 Michael Cramer has been a Member of the European Parliament and in this function acts as speaker for the Green Party in the committee on transport and tourism.

His commitment for preserving the memory of the Berlin Wall goes back to his first visit in Berlin: When visiting the German capital in 1963, he used his first own camera that his aunt had given him to take photos of the Wall at Bernauer Straße. From then on, he would always go to that place to see how the division line was deepening. During the summer of 1989, he was cycling along the so-called "Zollweg" (customs road) around West-Berlin and did the same trip again in spring 1990 after the Wall had come down, this time on the so-called "Kolonnenweg" within the former death strip, where the GDR border troops had been patrolling. It was during these trips that the idea of creating a cycle path along the former Wall was born. In 2001, Michael Cramer started organising the "Berlin Wall Tours" along the former division line and, as a member of the parliament of Berlin, convinced the authorities to signpost the trail and build bicycle-friendly infrastructure.