Twenty years on, European leaders celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall

Twenty years on, European leaders celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall

By Mail Foreign Service

Last updated at 9:05 PM on 9th November 2009

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It was the night a country was reunited. When the Berlin Wall came down on November 9 1989, it was the moment that signalled the beginning of the end of Communism in Europe.

Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lead the country in celebrating the 20-year anniversary by retracing her steps of the night the wall fell.

Global leaders paid tribute to the spirit of the German people 20 years after the fall of the wall.

Statesmen: Geman Chancellor Angela Merkel leads Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Dmitry Medvedev and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit to the Pariser Platz in Berlin during tonight's celebrations

Historic: World leaders walk through the Brandenburg Gate during the 20th anniversary celebrations

Commemoration: Former Polish President Lech Walesa reacts after pushing over the first domino block on the corner of the Reichstag Gate

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: 'The whole world is proud of you. 'You tore down the wall and you changed the world; you tore down the wall that for a third of a century had imprisoned half a city, half a country, half a continent and half the world; and because of your courage two Berlins are one, two Germanies are one, and now two Europes are one.'

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stressed the Soviet Union's role in bringing down the Berlin Wall, and suggested that more must be done to clear Europe of dividing lines.

He told the crowd: 'Naturally, we can't forget that the fall of the wall was prepared by what happened in the Soviet Union. 'These changes brought advantages to all of Europe... The Iron Curtain was overcome and the barriers were overcome.'

Tributes: Gordon Brown makes a speech during the celebrations and, right, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton addresses the crowds at the Brandenburg Gate

Fireworks are set off above the Brandenburg Gate during the celebrations

The hand-painted giant domino pieces being to fall along the path of the original Berlin Wall

And U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute to the German people in a video address. He said: 'Nov. 9, 1989 will always be remembered and cherished in the United States.

'Like so many Americans, I'll never forget the images of people tearing down the wall. There could be no clearer rebuke of tyranny, there could be no stronger affirmation of freedom.'

Mrs Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, was joined by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Bornholmer Strasse bridge - the first crossing to open after a confused announcement that East Germany was lifting travel restrictions.

The Chancellor was joined by a group of prominent former East Germans as well as Poland's pro-democracy leader, Lech Walesa.

Today she thanked Mr Gorbachev for making change possible, adding that it was 'not just a day of celebration for Germany, but a day of celebration for the whole of Europe.'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (c) walks across the Bornholmer Strasse Bridge today, retracing her steps from East Germany 20 years ago

Mikhail Gorbachev (l) and Lech Walesa (r) help the German Chancellor hold a black and white photo of the famous Bornholmer Strasse bridge crossing in 1989

Today's celebrations will include a concert featuring performances from Bon Jovi, the Staats kapelle orchestra and DJ Paul van Dyck.

There will also be memorials across the city to the 136 who lost their lives attempting to cross the nearly 100-mile (155km) barrier that cut Berlin in two and stood as the most visible reminder of what was then an intractable, seemingly endless Cold War between the West and East.

An estimated 100,000 people are set to gather in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the iconic gateway that once stood in the midst of no man's land, surrounded by the wall, barbed wire and machine guns.

But instead of border guards and tense emotion, the gate will be the site of music, speeches and fireworks, in honour of the night in 1989 when people danced atop the Berlin Wall, feet thudding on the cold concrete, arms raised in victory, hands clasped in friendship and giddy hope.

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Tourists gather to see the individually painted dominos along the former route of the wall in front of illuminated landmark Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

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Crowds visit the line of painted styrofoam domino pieces near the Reichstag in central Berlin

The Quadriga statue stands illuminated on top of the Brandenburg Gate last night

1,000 giant dominoes, individually painted by German students, have been placed along the wall route, to be toppled later, signifying how Communist governments in Eastern Europe fell one after another.

In an interview, Mr Gorbachev said the collapse had been a catalyst for peace. 'No matter how hard it was, we worked, we found mutual understanding and we moved forward. We started cutting down nuclear weapons, scaling down the armed forces in Europe and resolving other issues,' he said.

Mrs Clinton said that 'the ideals that drove Berliners to tear down that wall are no less relevant today. The freedoms championed then are no less precious'. Monday 'should be a call to action not just a commemoration of past actions,' she said.

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A visitor photographs over the edge of a still-existing section of the Berlin Wall into the so-called 'death strip', where East German border guards had the order to shoot anyone attempting to flee into West Berlin

Visitors arrive to place roses in cracks in a still-existing section of the Berlin Wall at the Bernauer Strasse memorial

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People look at the individually painted dominos along the former route of the wall in front of the Reichstag in Berlin

The wall, which surrounded West Berlin, was erected at the height of the Cold War in 1961by Communist East Germany to prevent East Germans from taking refuge in the Capitalist enclave.

But on November 9, 1989, East Germans came in droves, riding their sputtering Trabants, motorcycles and rickety bicycles. Hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands crossed over the following days.

Stores in West Berlin stayed open late and banks gave out 100 Deutschmarks in 'welcome money' to each East German visitor.

The party lasted four days and by November 12 more than 3 million of East Germany's 16.6 million people had crossed the border.

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Welcome: German Chancellor Angela Merkel greets U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Berlin today

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Women place flowers in the back wall (east side, looking west) of a preserved segment of the Berlin wall during the anniversary today

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Former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, former United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Gensche next to a piece of the Berlin wall

Klaus-Hubert Fugger, a student at the Free University in West Berlin, recalled how he had been drinking in a bar when people entered 'who looked a bit different.'

Mr Fugger, now 43, told how he and three others took a taxi to the Brandenburg Gate and scaled the 12-foot (4m) wall with hundreds of others. 'There were really like a lot of scenes, like people crying, because they couldn't get the situation,' he said. 'A lot of people came with bottles of champagne and sweet German sparkling wine.'

The wall, which stood for 28 years, is now mostly destroyed, though some parts still stand as part of an open-air museum. The only reminder is a series of inlaid bricks that trace its path.

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Berliners celebrating on top of the wall as East Germans flood through the dismantled Berlin Wall into West Berlin. East Berlin, right, citizens climbing up the Berlin Wall near the Brandenburger Tor

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East and West Berliners celebrating in front of a control station during the opening of the borders to the West

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A Berliner chisels a piece of the wall that divided East and West Berlin

THE COLD WAR'S LAST GREAT DIVIDE

As Germany marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a million soldiers line the 150 mile (245km) Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating north and south Korea.

The 2.5-mile (4km) wide no man's land, established under the ceasefire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War is one of the heaviest collection of armaments on earth.

'The economic gap between the two Koreas is far wider than that of the two Germanys before reunification,' said South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo newspaper. It is estimated that it would cost more than $1 trillion for South Korea to absorb the North, the only real scenario in the event of reunification.

Aside from the huge costs, there has been virtually no contact between the two Koreas for decades, cutting almost all telephone and postal contact between the two states.

East Germans by comparison were able to see the outside world through West German TV and the two countries had far more exchanges of people.

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East German border guards looking through a hole in the Berlin wall after demonstrators pulled down a segment of the wall at Brandenburg gate

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East German border policemen, right, refusing to shake hands with a Berliner who stretches out his hand over the border fence at the eastern site nearby Checkpoint Charlie

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East and West Berliners passing the border crossing station in Berlin after the wall fell. Right, East German border guards standing on top of the Berlin wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

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