Berlin celebrates 20 years of unity with festival of freedom (Roundup)

Nov 9, 2009, 20:42 GMT

Berlin - Celebrations marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago ended in a fanfare of fireworks on Monday, after a thousand giant dominoes toppled in the centre of the once-divided city, watched by leaders and statesmen from Europe and the world.

It was a day steeped in symbolism, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who grew up in East Germany - retraced her own steps at the first border crossing to have opened on November 9, 1989.

The chancellor was accompanied by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former opposition leader and president Lech Walesa of Poland, as well as civil rights activists.

Later, European Union leaders accompanied Merkel through the Brandenburg gate, a symbol of reunification that had been sealed shut by the concrete wall splicing the heart of the city for 28 years.

Leaders of the 27 EU states and the World War II Allies were treated to a classical performance by renowned Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and operatic star Placido Domingo at the base of the floodlit triumphal arch.

The heads of the World War II Allies - France, Russia, Britain and the United States - addressed crowds braving the cold, rainy weather to speak of the example set by the events of 1989.

In a video broadcast to central Berlin, US President Barack Obama said, 'Even as we mark this day, we know the work of freedom is never finished.'

   'What seems impossible - an end to nuclear proliferation, an end to extreme poverty, an end to climate catastrophe - can become possible and then unstoppable,' said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

'We have it in our power to overcome the borders of today, just as we managed in 1989,' Merkel told the crowds.

The chancellor also remembered the Nazi pogrom on November 9, 1938, when the destruction of Jewish shops, houses and synagogues set in motion the systematic persecution of Germany's Jews.

'For us Germans, November 9 is also a day of warning,' Merkel said, adding that the date 'opened the darkest chapter of German history.'

Later, 2.5-metre high foam-filled dominoes, decorated by school children and artists from Germany and the world, toppled along a 1.5- kilometre stretch where the Wall once stood.

Walesa set in motion the first stone, to recall the sequence of events triggered in Poland early 1989, which culminated on November 9 that year.

   On that day, travel restrictions for East German citizens were unexpectedly lifted, prompting a rush of thousands of Berliners to the despised barrier, where they were allowed to cross in a night of jubilation.

Merkel, at the time a physicist living in East Berlin, had been among the first to cross into West Berlin at the Bornholmer Bridge checkpoint, where she paid tribute to the bravery of her countrymen as she re-enacted the crossing 20 years later.

   President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took part in the Berlin celebrations, along with the leaders of all 27 EU member states and European Commission and Parliament Presidents Jose Manuel Barroso and Jerzy Buzek.

The leaders all retired to a dinner in Merkel's Berlin office, where the table talk was expected to be dominated not by historical reminiscences, but by the far more pressing search for the first EU president.

Meanwhile, damp onlookers in central Berlin enjoyed a huge firework display, recalling the joyous scenes as East and West Berliners partied the night away 20 years ago, atop the defunct wall.

   Events to match the Berlin celebrations were held around the world.

   In Paris, tens of thousands gathered for a spectacular light-and- music show. In Rome, a chunk of the original wall was displayed to the Pink Floyd song, Another Brick in the Wall.

   In Los Angeles, pieces of the Berlin Wall came down in a glitzy arts extravaganza, and in London, a wall of ice melted slowly in the cool autumn weather.

Demonstrators in the Palestinian town of Ramallah tore down a segment of the 8-metre-high wall separating the West Bank from Israel.

   The night the Berlin Wall was breached spelled the end of Europe's East-West divide.

In the months that followed, the Soviet-controlled bloc in Eastern Europe collapsed and democratic elections were held, sweeping most of the communist parties from power.