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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with school students in Berlin - Source: Reuters -
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World leaders past and present gathered in the German capital 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 November 9, 1989, when East
Berliners trapped behind the 3.6 metre high concrete barrier rushed
checkpoints to force it open, have dominated German television and
newspaper coverage for the past week.
As part of Monday's celebrations, 1,000 giant painted dominoes have
been set up along a 1.5 km stretch of the Wall's original path next
to the Brandenburg Gate.
They will be toppled on Monday evening in the presence of visiting
leaders from Britain, France and Russia, in a symbolic re-enactment
of a day that shook the world.
"Its majesty lies not in the presence of a structure, but in its
absence," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in pre-released
excerpts from a speech he will give on Monday evening.
"The wall is gone. Two Berlins are one. Two Germanys are one.
Two Europes are one."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also in Berlin and she met
Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first German leader to have grown up
behind the Wall in communist East Germany.
Merkel, who was working as a scientific researcher in East Berlin
20 years ago, has called the fall of the Wall the happiest day in
recent Germany history.
Backed by the Soviet Union, the East German government began
erecting its anti-fascist protection barrier in the early hours of
August 13, 1961 to end a mass flight of its citizens into
capitalist West Berlin.
Initially a make-shift fence of barbed wire, it was gradually built
up into an imposing barrier that encircled the three western
sectors of the city and was patrolled by border guards who were
ordered to shoot anyone who tried to escape.
At least 136 died
According to a study published this year, 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
4 am the next morning.
Watched by thousands on television, he prompted a rush to the
border that unprepared, overwhelmed eastern guards were unable to
contain.
With some people, the 1990 reunification of the country remains a
sore point.
A poll of over 1,000 Germans for the Leipziger Volkszeitung
daily showed one in eight wanted the Wall rebuilt - with the
numbers nearly equal in East and West.
Thousands of tourists have poured into Berlin to mark the
event.
Figures from the era that ushered in the collapse of communism
in Eastern Europe, including ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and
Polish Solidarity union leader Lech Walesa, are also taking part in
commemorations.
Gorbachev, ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl and former US President George
Bush Senior, who led their respective countries in November 1989,
appeared in a double page newspaper advertisement in Germany.
"No wall is ever strong enough to strangle the human spirit," Bush
said in a comment alongside a photo of the three.
