Berlin, the once-divided city that epitomised the Cold War, commemorated the fall of the wall 36 years ago on Sunday with a memorial ceremony on Bernauer Strasse, a street that was split in two when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961.
“Courageous citizens, with their desire for freedom and unity, brought down the Berlin Wall,” said Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, joining a commemoration of the wall’s fall on November 9, 1989.
Axel Klausmeier, director of the Berlin Wall Foundation, said “the memory of the events in the autumn of 1989 obliges us to take responsibility.”
Visiting a wall memorial site marked with roses, he said it obliged people to practise tolerance, defend democracy, freedom and human rights, and to promote the dream of peaceful coexistence.
The Berlin Wall divided the city into East and West for 28 years. In the autumn of 1989, mass demonstrations put the leadership of former East Germany under such pressure that on November 9 it opened the sealed borders for its citizens to travel.
Tens of thousands crossed from East to West Berlin that evening. As a result, the inner-German border separating East from West Germany also fell.
Berlin is now marking the anniversary for the first time with Berlin Freedom Week – some 130 conferences, cultural events and talks with eyewitnesses at 80 locations until November 15.
At the opening event, called the World Liberty Congress, there were about 200 dissidents from more than 50 autocratically governed states. Wegner said at the opening that Berlin’s history showed that the desire for freedom and democracy could not be suppressed.
