Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall in a spectacular event. Chancellor Angela Merkel, fresh from her electoral victory, made the occasion truly international by making it a huge congregation of top statesmen from all parts of the world. The anniversary celebrations brought all 27 European Union leaders together, as well as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

It was the historic fall of the wall that eventually led to the end of the communist regime in East Germany and reunified Germany after decades of division. It is marked as the end of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall, seen as the symbol of the Cold War, was erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1961 to separate West Germany from East Germany and stop migration to the West.

Following weeks of protests against the regime, East Germany’s Communist rulers suddenly allowed people to travel to the West on 9 November 1989. After 28 years as prisoners in their own country, East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans on the other side. Eleven months later, East and West German unified on 3 October 1990.

Grand Ceremony

The main ceremony of the 20th anniversary of the Fall of Berlin Wall took place in the 1,800-seat Friedrichstadt Palast, a Berlin theatre, hosted by Bernhard Vogel, president of Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

One of the highlights of the day was having Poland’s former pro-democracy leader Lech Welesa initiate a chain reaction that led to the toppling of 1,000 massive plastic dominoes placed along the route of the now vanished wall. The one thousand plastic foam dominoes where the wall once stood toppled one-by-one. Painted by school children across the world, these 2.3-metre-tall blocks stretched for 1.5 kilometres with planned stops for speeches and memorials. An open-air concert followed.

Despite the rain, thousands of people gathered for a commemorative ceremony on the Bornholmer Street Bridge which was the first border crossing to open on 9 November, 1989. German Chancellor Angela Merkel led leaders including Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev through the Brandenburg Gate, the climax of ceremonies. “Today marks a truly happy moment of the German and the European history,” Ms Merkel said.

Tens of thousands who showed up at the site of the Berlin Wall loudly cheered former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in the wall’s collapse. Gorby! Gorby!” Berliners chanted as he was escorted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel across the Bornholmer Strasse Bridge, which was the first crossing to open. “You made this possible,” Merkel told Gorbachev during ceremonies marking the end of the wall. “You courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect.”

Merkel, who grew up in East Berlin, first crossed that bridge on 9 November, 1989 along with thousands of others who streamed into West Berlin for the first time in 28 years.

Rebuke of Tyranny

US President Obama paid glowing tributes to the moment in a video message that was introduced by Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton saying it sent a message of hope to “those who believe, even in the face of cynicism and doubt and oppression that walls can truly come down. There could be no clearer rebuke of tyranny. There could be no stronger affirmation of freedom”.

Obama added, “November 9, 1989 will always be remembered and cherished in the United States. This anniversary is a reminder that human destiny will be what we make of it. Even in the face of tyranny people insisted that the world could change. Human destiny is what human beings make up. Let us never forget November 9, 1989, nor the sacrifices that made it possible.”

Trio Again

Interestingly, the former heads of state who oversaw the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 gathered in Berlin to take part in the 20th anniversary. George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Helmut Kohl, who were the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union, and West Germany respectively, are regarded as the main architects of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The three statesmen were invited by the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel to attend the events. They emphasized that in the end it was the will of the people – not the decisions of political leaders – that brought the Berlin Wall down.

“The historic events we have gathered to celebrate were set in motion not in Bonn or Moscow or Washington, but rather in the hearts and minds of people, who had too long been deprived of their God-given rights,” Bush said. “The wall could confine them from loved ones and lock them in the failing economic system but in the end it could not extinguish the embers of their undying hope or harness their human desire for freedom,” he added.

Both Bush and Gorbachev called on Germany, the United States, and Russia to continue to find ways to build a prosperous and peaceful future. “The experience we are talking about now and rejoicing its outcome, teaches us that we have to do everything together, we need to trust each other,” Gorbachev said.

Kohl praised the cooperation and enormous trust among the three leaders that paved the way toward German reunification in 1990. Kohl was the first chancellor of the unified Germany. He described Bush and Gorbachev as ‘important and reliable partners’ for Germany. Missing from the reunion was two leaders who were influential at that time— former French President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who is in ill health.