World Leaders to mark fall of Berlin Wall
GERMANY: World leaders past and present will join German crowds on
Monday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
a stark symbol of the Cold War that divided a city and a continent.
Recollections of Nov. 9, 1989 dominated German newspaper headlines at
the weekend, and television stations ran programme after programme of
documentary footage, eyewitness accounts and discussion panels about the
event that changed the face of Europe.
|
Berlin wall |
| *Germans
immerse themselves in memories of 1989
* French, British and Russian
leaders join Germany's Merkel
* Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin
for commemorations |
"There has scarcely been an historical watershed so radical and so
immediately visible as November 9, 1989," the Koelnische Rundschau daily
wrote in an editorial.
"Anyone standing shortly before eight at the Brandenburg Gate would
have thought it an absurd dream that there would be a crowd of people on
top of the Wall four hours later."
Pivotal figures from the era that ushered in the collapse of
communism in eastern Europe, such as ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
and Lech Walesa, who led anti-communist protests in Poland at the head
of the Solidarity trade union, will take part in commemorative events
around the once-divided capital on Monday.
Joining them will be the leaders of the nations which occupied
postwar Germany, apart from the United States, which will be represented
by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy
and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are all due to attend the
celebrations hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amid a series of
bilateral meetings.
Thousands of tourists have poured into the capital to mark the event
which hastened the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Iron
Curtain and the end of the Soviet Union.
Berlin, Monday, Reuters |
