A man in Germany ran into a wall, literally, as he opened his front door to leave the house, police said.

The man was heading out of his home in Mainhausen, near Frankfurt, but found that unknown perpetrators had - it seems quietly and without attracting anyone's attention - built a wall in the doorway during the night. He had to tear down the wall to leave.

A police statement said the man "must have felt like a Berliner in August 1961", referring to East Germany's unannounced sealing of its border with the Berlin Wall.

Police spokesman Ingbert Zacharias told news agency dpa that officers do not know whether a prank, a dare or an act of revenge was behind the wall.

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