Imagine if every tourist took a piece of the wall how much would be left.

There isn't a whole lot left and outside the memorial it's not easy to find. seetheworldinmyeyes.com/historical-architecture/…

Yes, travel the world, destroy historical landmarks, eat local cuisines!

@PeterM: If the people tasked with dismantling the wall had loaded even 1% of the concrete debris into warehouses, there would be more than enough to give a pebble-sized piece to everyone who might possibly want one. There are places where remnants of destroyed structures remain not for reasons of historical-preservation, but simply because nobody's cleaned them up yet. If stuff is going to be hauled away to the dump, removing some of it first would simply reduce the amount remaining to be hauled.

Of course the difficulty is finding (a) the right heap of rubble and (b) someone with authority to tell you that indeed it is intended for disposal and you can take some of it. If it was just some random building then the chances of anyone making a case for theft or vandalism because you picked up a stone lying on the ground around a demolition site is vanishingly small. If it's recognisably the ruins of something of national significance, like then who knows what the owners want done with it?

are you seriously considering doing this?

@PeterM In fact, not much is left at this point.

Re, your edit: Yeah, I gave this a +1, and it's not a bad question either. I also struggled to find sources on this online.

@supercat That's debattable but this ship has sailed, there are only a few pieces of the wall left, most notably at the Gedenkstättenensemble Berliner Mauer, the East Side Gallery and the Topographie des Terrors, which are all historical protected historical monument so PeterM's point is certainly valid today (although technically, there are indeed a few pieces that are not officially protected).

You’re twenty-seven years too late to pick your pebble out of the wall. Sorry mate! (My dad did it in 1989 or early 1990 when the wall was falling apart anyways.)

Do you know any historical monument which would let you take a piece from it? What made you think the Berlin wall is any different?

@njzk2 ahem, maths … ^^' (feel free to flag for deletion ;))

Note that generally speaking in Germany, you cannot take anything anywhere. Even if it's tree planted by a collective farm in the GDR nobody cares about anymore, legally it and its fruits belong to someone.

Please disclose your home address. If I ever travel your city, I'll make sure to take a piece of your front door. Keepsake. No problem, right?

Its ironic that there are tens of thousands of people, like myself, who have bags and bags of Berlin Wall, chipped off of it in 1989, in our attics. I should do something about my collection.

I wouldn't be so quick to presume that fragments of the wall for sale are fakes. Germany has strong, and well enforced, consumer protection laws and I find it unlikely that if you go to a reputable establishment the pieces you could buy wouldn't be genuine. The wall was huge and so there are plenty of genuine pieces out there.

Surely it's fitting and appropriate to buy a souvenir of the downfall of communism in a tacky commercial gift shop?

Can I get a piece of Trump's southern border wall? I mean, sure, it hasn't been built yet, but it might make an interesting Clinton fundraiser to sell crumbling fragments of wall concrete as a symbol of the crumbling opposition campaign. (Also, definite +1 to @user568458!)

Quietly put one in your pocket when no one is looking. If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody was there to see it falling, did the tree really fall?

@DmitryGrigoryev: The Dixie Square Mall where the Blues Brothers movie was filmed has, from what I understand, had some "official" days when one could take a brick if one wanted, along with thousands more unofficial days when nobody would care if one took a brick.

This is a great question, I've asked a generalization of the question.

Take nothing but photos; leave nothing but footprints.

@user902383 I think taking a piece of a Berlin wall would be frowned on. And taking a Berlin Wall would be kidnapping.

@MaskedMan And leave a similar looking rock from some other place in exchange...

Well I've got a piece...

@SteveIves And how did you get it?

A friend bought it back when he went to Berlin very shortly after the wall fell. My price is about 1cmx1cmx3cm.

@SteveIves Cool. BTW, I didn't see your comment until now, because you didn't ping me.