Germany celebrates 20th anniversary:

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Damien McElroy and Bruno Waterfield in Berlin

Germany on Monday celebrated 20 years of freedom since the Berlin Wall collapsed as world leaders gathered at the united city’s rain-sodden landmarks to pay tribute to those who overcame the Iron Curtain.

People watch the fireworks display in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on November 9, 2009 during the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. AFP

Chancellor Angela Merkel set the tone at the outset, walking among tens of thousands of joyful Berliners alongside Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, and Lech Walesa, the former Polish president and Solidarity union leader, who chiselled the first cracks in the Eastern bloc.

At a crowded bridge on Bornholmer Strasse, near the point where the first border controls were lifted, Mrs Merkel, who was born in East Germany, spoke about crossing over at that point as a scientist at research institute.

The German leader paid a tribute to the men who were architects of the Soviet collapse and helped made her crossing possible. “We always knew that something had to happen there so that more could change here”, she told Gorbachev. “You made this possible. You courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect”.

Walesa was praised for inspiring East Germans to have the courage to take to the streets against a hard-line Communist regime that denied basic freedoms and had shot dead 136 people who tried to cross the Wall.

Damaging exodus

The 96-mile wall took 14 years to build after Soviet allies ordered its erection to staunch a damaging exodus westwards in 1961. But it was picked apart in days after street protests forced East Germany’s Communist leaders to lift travel restrictions.

Later, Walesa and the former Hungarian Prime Minister, Miklos Nemeth, who had refused to reinforce his country’s German border, thus providing the first outlet for fleeing East Germans, pushed over the first of 1,000 giant Styrofoam dominoes in a symbolic recreation of the collapse of Communism in Berlin and throughout the East.

The rain grew steadily heavier but that did not deter thousands gathering for outdoor concerts featuring Bon Jovi, the rock group, and Daniel Barenboim, the conductor. As soon as the last domino fell, a fireworks display topped off the night.

Gordon Brown was among the leaders representing Germany’s European neighbours and the four allied powers that had occupied Berlin.

Before passing through the Brandenburg Gate with his fellow leaders, he said, “The wall that had imprisoned half a city, half a country, half a continent, half a world for nearly a third of a century was swept away by the greatest force of all, the unbreakable spirit of men and women who dared to dream in the darkness, who knew that while force has the temporary power to dictate, it can never ultimately decide”.

President Barack Obama, who was represented by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, recorded a surprise video address to the gathering. He was cheered in Berlin when he said the celebrations 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’. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian President, provided a discordant note by complaining that the collapse of the eastern bloc had led to Nato encroachment on his country’s western flank.

“We were hoping the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would be accompanied by a different degree of Russia’s integration into common European space”, he said. “What have we received as a result? Nato is still a bloc whose rockets are targeting the Russian territory”.

Our country

Mrs. Merkel’s underpowered speaking style and eastern background fitted the mood of the day perfectly. At one point she referred to the Communist state as ‘our country’.

East Germans frequently complain that the 1990 merger of the two states was an unequal annexation but Mrs. Merkel, now at the start of her second term as Chancellor, is an antidote to resentment.

The 55-year old leader said it was ‘regrettable’ that the suffering of the victims of the Communist regime, including those jailed, bullied and denied the freedom to travel, had not been fully recognized. “German unity is still incomplete”, Mrs. Merkel said. “We must tackle this problem if we want to achieve equal quality of life”.

Veterans of the events sounded more hopeful than at the last celebrations ten years ago when the disparities between the two sides were most glaring. “My great joy is that I have never lost my identity in all these changes”, an easterner who crossed the border on the first night Andreas Gross said. “I was born in Germany. The wall was only temporary. I will die in Germany”.

Patrick Koglin, who claimed he was the first man to cross freely from west to east, recalled the chaos as border guards simply gave up the defence of the system. “They just said the wall is open go in”, he said. “My joy is the same as 20 years ago”.

Collapse of the regime

Churches were the driving force in the demonstrations that led to the collapse of the regime. Dissident meetings at Gethsemane Church in eastern Berlin and the city of Leipzig mushroomed into mass demonstrations. Joachim Gauck, a pastor and member of the freedom movement, said the Communist regime had ultimately lost the ability to control events.

“Those in Government thought they were opening a valve, but once it was open much more happened”, Gauck said. “A collapse followed”.

The reception given to the former Soviet leader was considerably warmer than anything that he could expect on the streets of Russia. Germans remain profoundly grateful that Gorbachev withdrew Moscow’s unquestioning support for the hard-line regime of Erich Honecker. The crowd responded to Merkel’s tribute by chanting ‘Gorby’ just as the crowds had done in defiance of Honecker at East Germany’s 40th and last birthday parade a month before the wall came down.

The Daily Telegraph