Dec. 20—BERLIN — A drone crashed into the bell tower of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church early Sunday, a police spokesman said.
The Memorial Church was built between 1891 to 1895. After its destruction in World War II, the tower was deliberately left as a ruin.
Two men were attempting to capture footage of the landmark — set at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz square, the scene of a deadly truck attack several years ago — when their unmanned aircraft collided with the bell tower and got wedged into its facade.
"The drone apparently had a weak battery and got stuck in the Eiermann facade," the spokesman said, referring to Egon Eiermann, the architect in charge of the church's post-War reconstruction.
Firefighters were able to remove the drone after a two-hour operation that involved the use of a cherry picker.
There is a no-fly zone around the church, but the men — aged 27 and 31 — claimed not to have known this. The drone has been confiscated.
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