Claim: Gerhard Richter escaped to West Germany before the building of the Berlin Wall (a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989) and his painting were painted over for ideological reasons.
Evidence: Together with his wife Marianne, Richter escaped from East to West Germany two months before the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Both his wall paintings in the Academy of Arts and the Hygiene Museum were then painted over for ideological reasons. The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ (listen)) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.