World marks Berlin wall anniversary
Updated on 09 November 2009
Leaders gather in Germany to celebrate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall - a stark symbol of the cold war that divided a city and a continent.
Thousands of politicians, tourists and pivotal figures from 1989 gather in Berlin today to recall the event which hastened the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the iron curtain and the end of the Soviet Union.
The Berlin wall separated the German capital into capitalist West Berlin and communist East Berlin. After 28 years it finally fell on 9 November 1989.
Political figures from the era that ushered the collapse of communism in eastern Europe will take part in commemorate events today. They include ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Walesa, who led anti-communist protests in Poland at the head of the Solidarity trade union.
Joining them will be the leaders of the nations which occupied post-war Germany.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are all due to attend the celebrations hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amid a series of bilateral meetings.
The anniversary dominated German newspaper headlines over the weekend. One editorial read: "There has scarcely been an historical watershed so radical and so immediately visible as November 9, 1989.
"Anyone standing shortly before eight at the Brandenburg Gate would have thought it an absurd dream that there would be a crowd of people on top of the wall four hours later."
Angela Merkel, who was working as a scientific researcher in East Berlin at the time, said this weekend the fall of the wall was, "the happiest day in recent Germany history".
Celebrations are planned all over the city, including the toppling of 1,000 giant brightly coloured dominoes along a 1.5km stretch of the wall's original path.
Shaken by mass flight of its citizens into capitalist West Berlin, Communist East Germany began erecting its "anti-fascist protection barrier" in the early hours of 13 Aug 1961.
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, however, managed to evade the minefields, dogs and guards in watchtowers, using ingenious schemes including tunnels, aerial wires and hidden compartments in cars in order to make it to the west.
