Brandenburg Gate celebrations mark fall of the Berlin Wall
November 10, 2009
Many of the world’s leaders joined tens of thousands of people at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A procession, led by Angela Merkel the German Chancellor also included Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, Dmitry Medvedev and Nicolas Sarkozy. Another event organizers set up to represent the toppling of the wall twenty-years ago was the toppling of 1,000 eight-foot high dominoes set up along the route where the wall used to stand. The dominoes were said to represent not only the fall of the wall but also the fall of the communist countries which toppled soon after.
Earlier in the day both Angela Merkel and Mikhail Gorbachev had crossed over the point where east used to meet west to cheers from a gathered crowd. In a speech Angela Merkel described the day the wall came down as the happiest of her life. She was one of thousands of East Germans to cross into the West after hearing that Germany would be relaxing travel restrictions for its citizens. She went on to praise Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in bringing about the change.
The celebrations included fireworks and an open-air concert. Speaking at the event Gordon Brown said that the events in 1989 proved that no people could be repressed by tyranny indefinitely. He said that the people of Berlin had proved that an unbreakable spirit and a common purpose had proved more powerful than any force that wishes to dominate.
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