World leaders past and present gathered in the German capital yesterday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, which led to German reunification and hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.
Images of the historic night of Nov. 9, 1989, when East Berliners trapped behind the 3.6m high concrete barrier rushed checkpoints to force it open, have dominated German TV and newspaper coverage for the past week.
As part of the celebrations, 1,000 giant painted dominoes have been set up along a 1.5km stretch of the Wall’s original path next to the Brandenburg Gate. They were scheduled be toppled last night in the presence of visiting leaders from Britain, France and Russia, in a symbolic re-enactment of a day that shook the world.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the first German leader to have grown up behind the Wall in East Germany. She was working as a scientific researcher in East Berlin 20 years ago. She has called the fall of the Wall “the happiest day in recent Germany history.”
She was due to begin the day at a remembrance service in the Gethsemane Church, which had been a center of the resistance movement against the East German state in the former East Berlin. Later, she was to share a moment of reflection in the Chapel of Reconciliation, built at the site of the so-called Death Strip, the forbidden area between the two layers of the Berlin Wall.
The day’s events will culminate at the iconic Brandenburg Gate, which for 28 years had stood out of bounds at the center of the divided city.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will join Merkel for a ceremonial walk through the gate.
The evening is set to end with a huge fireworks display, recalling the joyous scenes as people partied the night away on top of the breached Berlin Wall 20 years ago.
A study published this year said that at least 136 people were killed at the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989 while trying to escape. Thousands of others managed to evade the minefields, guard dogs and watchtowers, using schemes including tunnels, aerial wires and hidden compartments in cars to make it to the West.
The Wall fell after Politburo member and spokesman Guenter Schabowski told a news conference that East German citizens could leave through border crossings, effective immediately.
He was unaware the decision was not supposed to be announced until 4am the next morning. Watched by thousands on TV, he prompted a rush to the border that unprepared, overwhelmed eastern guards were unable to contain.
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