Grab a chunk of the Cold War! Berlin Wall goes under the hammer near Brighton

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Several pieces of the Berlin Wall went up for auction at Summer's Place Auctions in Billingshurst, roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Brighton, on Tuesday.

The sections of the wall up for auction are covered with art painted by German performance artist Ben Wagin and were formerly part of Berlin's Parliament of Trees memorial for those who died while trying to cross the wall.

The Berlin wall divided West Berlin from East Berlin, and the rest of East Germany, between 1961 and 1989 and was comprised of a concrete barrier, along with other elements, and was manned by thousands of border guards.

At least 140 people are estimated to have died while attempting to cross the wall, with over 100,000 trying to escape over it and only around 5,000 succeeding.

Also up for auction is a rare Soviet Lavochkin V-751 missile, which belongs to the S-75 family of surface-to-air missiles which were developed to counter the long range bombers of the US airforce in the 1950s.

"The S-75 series of rockets is probably most famous for shooting down Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot, as well as John McCain, the US senator and causing the Bay of Pigs crisis, when they were mistaken for nuclear ballistic missiles", explained Rupert van der Werff from Summers Place Auctions.

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