Don't mention the Wall: Has Berlin escaped its divided past?

They took the Wall away in the middle of the night. Eighteen metres of concrete and iron that had stood in Potsdamer Platz - gawped at and painted on for the 18 years since the Mauer crumbled on that strange, joyous day in 1989 - was gone. They took it three weeks ago, when the city emptied for Easter weekend. They thought no one would notice.

But Berliners did notice. They noticed because the Wall was removed from Potsdamer Platz: the scar in the heart of their city that was once a vast, grim wasteland between two cities, and is now the heart of corporate Berlin. They noticed because so little of the most potent symbol of Berlin's troubled Cold War history remains. They noticed because the tourists noticed. And they wanted answers.

The strip - which carries a picture of an East German Trabant driving through Checkpoint Charlie, and a prescient, graffitied demand - "Don't destroy history" - had been removed to make way for a new Environment Ministry. The government, realising that they had gaffed, made reassurances. The strip of the Wall, a spokesman later said, would be professionally restored and incorporated into a visitor centre at the new ministry.

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The outrage has now dimmed, but the incident raises the question - how do Berliners now feel about their Wall? In the months following that tense moment on 9 November 1989, when East German border guards tentatively suggested that exit visas would no longer be required to travel from the East side of the Wall to the West, Berliners had only one instinct: destroy it.

The division between East and West was erected overnight on 13 August 1961. A hundred miles of barbed wire was rolled out on the boundary of West Berlin and the GDR, and, two days later, the first concrete followed. Berlin was destined to become fragmented when the Allied powers split the city into British, French, American and Soviet zones at the 1945 Yalta Conference. But it became two cities in 1961 when the Wall went up.

Over the years that followed, the Wall - which became two walls separated by a no man's land called "the death strip" - developed not only into a formidable physical boundary but a potent psychological one. During its 28-year life the Mauer (or, as the GDR government dubbed it, the "anti-fascist protective rampart") had not only claimed 192 lives in failed escape attempts, but had ripped apart families, friendships and communities.

When Berliners took to the Wall with their picks in 1989, they wanted to destroy so much more than concrete. Years after most of the structure had been levelled, Berliners still talked about two Berlins divided by the "Mauer in Kopf" - the wall in the head.

But now, it seems, there are some who wish to preserve the remaining sections of the Wall. Despite its cloak and dagger operation in Potsdamer Platz, the government, too, has said it wants to provide more information on the site of the old Wall, as well as "information boards in trains and subway stations" and another "permanent exhibition".

Wherefore this Mauerstalgia? Is it shared by ordinary Berliners? How is the Wall remembered by those who live with its ruins? And what has become of the Wall itself?

I set off along the route of the Wall in old East Berlin, at the East Side Gallery. This is the site of the longest remaining stretch of wall in Berlin, which runs parallel to the River Spree, along Mühlenstrasse's six lanes of traffic. In 1990, this kilometre or so of eastern wall became a site for artists. And, in 1993, the government decreed that it should be preserved in perpetuity.

It's no surprise that the East Side Gallery is a must-see for tourists. It offers the chance to see a genuine portion of wall daubed with the kind of subversive art - one of the pictures shows Brezhnev and Honecker in a passionate embrace - for which the Berlin Wall has become internationally recognised.

But this is post-Wall art, and a post-Wall monument, given its English name by a British curator. Before 1989, the stretch at Mühlenstrasse was, being on the East side, un-graffitied (it was only the decadent Westerners who graffitied their Wall). Now, it exists as a recreation of history rather than a document, although, reassuringly, tourists have graffitied over the "official" paintings with messages ranging from "no troops to Lebanon!" to "A ™ P (since 28 July)".

The concrete is real enough. Aki Hanne, 38, walks past it every day on his way to work as the sports editor. Hanne was born in West Berlin and says that he grew up "with the Wall all around him". Does he think Berlin needs to preserve, or demolish, its walls?

"I am used to it, of course," he says. "So I see no problem in keeping as much of the Wall as possible. It's important that there is some Wall left so that people can think about what it meant."

What does he think about the piece that went from Potsdamer Platz? "Well, that land there is so expensive, they were always going to get rid of it," he says.

I move on across the Oberbaumbrücke, whose red-brick turrets fortify the rail bridge from East to West, and into Kreuzberg. In divided Berlin, Kreuzberg had a reputation for being the bohemian, anti-establishment district. It became the area where those who had come to West Berlin to dodge National Service laid their head.

The fall of the Wall doomed Kreuzberg to rising house prices and gentrification, but the neighbourhood still carries some of its dissident frisson. Every 1 May, Kreuzberg - the centre of the city's Turkish community - holds its May Riots. What do they riot about, I ask a Kreuzberger? "Anything. Everything," he says.

The Wall makes its way into Kreuzberg across the bridge and turns right, along the banks of the Spree, before cutting inland. You first see the wound left by the Wall on Engeldammstrasse, a residential crescent split by a 20 metre-wide dirt track that was once a death strip. On the old West Berlin side of the street, the lamp-posts curve and droop sympathetically. On the East side, they are straight, stolid affairs.

It is by one of these Stalinist lamp-posts that I meet a woman in her mid-twenties waiting for a bus. She tells me that she still feels where the Wall once was, and she likes the fact that the city has marked the Wall's former course with a small, cobbled path.

Further up the street, where the death strip has been converted into a communal garden, an elderly couple are tending plants on their balcony. Their second-floor flat, on the East Berlin side, looks out over where the Wall once was. The couple have lived here for 30 years, but refuse to have their photo taken, or give me their names.

What do they think about the Wall? "We used to be able to see over the Wall from our apartment," says the woman. "And, when it came down..." She tails off. Would she like to see it destroyed completely, or to preserve what's left? "Sowohl als auch," she replies - yes, and yes.

Further down the street is another old Ossi (the colloquial name given to those who lived on the East side by the Wessis) who is more happy to talk. Siegfried Ullrich - who gives me his surname first, as if I were a police officer - lived in East Berlin from 1959 and still lives only a block from where the Wall stood. He has known this area before, during and after the Wall.

"It's too late to preserve it," he says. "Now, the Wall is not shown as it was. The people in charge of preserving our history aren't interested in history. Those in charge of preserving the Wall have no idea what it was like - what it felt like to live with it. They have made a show out of it. It is unreal." As Kreuzberg turns into Mitte, the city's central district, the Wall's path zigzags through residential streets. Ullrich's words ring in my ears. No memorial could tell me how it was to have one's fortunes decided by such an arbitrary border.

I follow the cobbles. The Wall skips and turns across Heinrich-Heinestrasse and along a narrow alleyway, which backs on to cosy, middle-class streets. There's a wasteland where the Wall stood. Some of it has been appropriated by a car showroom and a Lidl supermarket, but it's mostly long grass and litter.

Uwer Salzmann, 54, is emptying bins on Sebastianstrasse. He's lived in West Berlin all his life. "I was happy when the Wall was there," he says, waving in its general direction. "It was a good protection from the GDR. I was happy when it was gone. And I am happy with the situation now. They can keep what they still have, but that's enough. We don't need any more memorials."

With that, Uwer carries on his duties. We're approached by Anna Voger, 26, a well-dressed woman who works at the Foreign Office. Anna comes from Hamburg, and as a newcomer to the city, she is fascinated by the Wall. Was she angry that they took a piece of it away in Potsdamer Platz? "Well, yes," she says. "But what are they going to do? Put it back?"

It's at this point that tourist signs start to appear, evidence that plans to show people where the Wall once stood are being carried out. Every hundred metres or so, there's a sign indicating the "Mauerweg" - the Wall route. The signs are unobtrusive, and, as the death strip starts to make way for inner-city buildings, making the route harder to follow, they are helpful.

I reach Checkpoint Charlie. This was the gateway for Westerners into the East, and one of the most politically loaded spots in Berlin. The "checkpoint" - a wooden guards' hut - remains, but the boom bars have long since disappeared. The land between Checkpoint Charlie and the old East is now a building site.

Checkpoint Charlie is a natural site for tourists. Travellers of every nationality queue up to have their pictures taken outside the old guards' hut with three Berlin University students who are dressed as American GIs, and who charge one euro per person per picture.

Meanwhile, under the famous sign reading "You are now leaving the American Sector" (it's a replica: the real sign is now in a nearby museum) tourists can have their passports stamped with an old exit visa. The stamp also costs a euro. The "GI" students smile constantly, and it's not hard to see why - they're making a killing.

Four 16-year-olds are here on a school trip from Darmstadt (which, unfortunately, means "city of the lower bowel"). One, Kristine Verjutina, whose family moved to Germany from Russia when she was 10, says: "It's interesting to see my history." Her friends tease her, and say it is all "a bit boring". She stands her ground. "To me," Kristine says, "this is important history."

Just beyond the Checkpoint Charlie theme park, there's a more moving monument to Cold War Berlin. On Niederkirchnerstrasse, an open-air exhibit, the Topography of Terror, details the worst crimes of the Nazi regime. Its location is loaded; the photos and historical texts are displayed alongside a basement that was once used by Gestapo torture units. At street level, one of the longest pieces of extant Berlin Wall casts long shadows.

A citation, written close to a piece of graffiti reading "Necessary?", says: "This section of the Wall will thus be kept in its current condition as a document both of the inhumanity of the border, and how it was overcome. It forms the northern edge of the 'Topography of Terror' site and will be integrated into its final design." It is as if Berlin has chosen to deal with the pain of both its Second World War and Cold War history in one savage hit.

I walk further into the centre of town - into Potsdamer Platz, where, even with the missing 18 metres, there are still some fragments of wall on display. This is where, oddly, many tourists come to experience the Wall, even though everything has changed utterly since 1989. Instead of rubble, there are now sleek, anaemic temples to commerce - the Sony and DaimlerChrysler buildings, and a multiplex cinema.

Between Potsdamer Platz and the Reichstag 800 metres north, the Wall is not the main attraction. One passes the concrete graves and alleys of Eisenman's bleak Holocaust memorial - another reminder of the Second World War placed on the site of the old Wall - and on to the Brandenburg gate, where Presidents Kennedy and Reagan once inveighed against the Communists.

Past the Reichstag - with its Norman Foster glass dome that was intended to showcase a new, transparent era in German politics, but today is showcasing tourists sweating in the spring sun - Berlin recedes into a sparse, sterile landscape. Due north, the Mauerweg follows the Spree to the Hauptbahnhof, the lonely, gleaming glass station built for the 2006 Football World Cup.

Along the East side of a canal, the path of the Wall continues northwards, among low-rent apartments. Suddenly, an East German watchtower springs out of a new housing development, its old GDR flag still flying.

Nico, a 21-year-old student who lives in a flat overlooking the watchtower, is eating a sandwich by the river. Doesn't he think the tower's continuing presence is weird? "No," he says. "The tourists want to come and look at something. We have to give them something to look at."

In Invalidenfriedhof, the old military graveyard, another discovery - 100 metres of Wall built straight through the cemetery. It was from this section that Günter Litfin was shot trying to cross the canal in 1961, becoming the first fatality of the Berlin Wall.

Two municipal workers tell me that when they started working at the cemetery in the early 1990s, the graves on the Western side of the Wall, closest to the water, had been part of the death strip and, as such, were completely overgrown.

Some of the obscured graves are marvellously grandiose. One features a naked sculpture of General Max Hoffman looking heroic and athletic and Prussian astride a stone that says "Died: 1927". The sight is arresting - like coming across Ozymandias in the desert.

My journey ends at the only section of Wall that has been left entirely as it was; two walls, one graffitied, one bare, with a death strip in between. The site, Bernauerstrasse, has been chosen with care. Here, in 1961, geography dictated that the border between East and West would fall on the East side of the street. In order to enforce the separation, the GDR did not, initially, build a wall - they simply boarded up the lower floors of all East Bernauerstrasse houses.

Many who found themselves on the East side of the street jumped from high windows and bolted the few yards to a different life. Others who were considered high-risk potential escapees were sent further away from the border. Eventually, in 1979, the houses on the East side were demolished and replaced by a watchtowered wilderness.

Now, Bernauerstrasse is a microcosm of how Berlin has decided to confront its Wall. There's a memorial, and a small museum. There's a viewing platform where one can look over the two walls, just as the border guards did. There's an plaque dedicated to "a city divided, and the victims of the Communist state".

Behind the Western wall, there is more: a yard, where unloved sections of the old Wall stand like gravestones, waiting to be taken to the scrapheap. Further north lies the most interesting development: the Chapel of the Reconciliation. The chapel had stood on the same patch of manicured turf from 1885 until 1961, when, suddenly, it found itself in the death strip. There it stood, with no congregation, and with its name issuing the bleakest irony, for most of the Cold War. Eventually, in 1985, the GDR decided that it was blocking their view and blew it up.

Now, it is remade. The spires and stained glass are gone, replaced by a striking, ascetic building - a cylinder made of clay and wood built on the foundations of the original chapel by two young German architects, Reitermann and Sassenroth. What they have created feels less like a memorial than a suture. The new church is a way of forgetting and remembering at the same time: the sowohl als auch of the East Berlin pensioner I met in Kreuzberg.

Since the Wall came down, Berlin has become a shop window for the work of international architects, among them Norman Foster and Daniel Libeskind. But even these men, who have been asked to build new landmarks in a new Berlin, have somehow missed their target. Berlin's history, it seems, is impenetrable for those who have not lived with it.

Reitermann and Sassenroth, though, wear their past lightly. It's a trait they share with many Berliners, who, perhaps as a result of the violence that has been visited on their city, have developed a phlegmatic streak. Which is not to say that Berliners do not feel their history keenly, but that they know how to move past it. A favourite saying of Berliners is "Na und?" - so what?

The Wall, meanwhile, is simply there, or it is not. These are facts to be grappled with as Berlin moves on. Of course, there are decisions to be made about how one chooses to remember those facts. Older Berliners, for whom the Wall represents a significant part of their lives, seem to wish for any memorials to be underplayed, without fanfare. The Wall was not, after all, one of the triumphs of modern civilisation.

For younger Berliners, though, the Wall has become something that makes their city unique: a source of pride, even. Outside the gates of the new chapel, I meet our final Berliner - a 19-year-old, tattooed skateboarder called Stefan Wedowski, who lives on Bernauerstrasse.

He would keep everything and anything that still remains of the Wall. "I see it every day on my way to school," Wedowski says. "And I love it."