BERLIN - WORLD leaders past and present gathered in the German capital on Monday 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 Nov 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 on Monday she met Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first German leader to have grown up behind the Wall in communist East Germany.
Mrs 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'. -- REUTERS
Read also:
Merkel thanks Gorbachev
Read also The Straits Times journalist's, Jonathan Eyal's, blog on The Berlin of today.
