Germany Celebrates Fall of Berlin Wall in Style

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev got together yesterday to hail the falling of the Berlin Wall, an event that reverberated around the world 20 years ago. Cheering Germans chanted "Gorby! Gorby!" as the two met and setting the raucous tone for the joyous celebration. For Merkel, the wall coming down is a special memory – having grown up in East Berlin, she cross over into West Berlin on the evening that the wall came down. Merkel congratulated Gorbachev heartily for his role in pushing reform in the Soviet Union, noting, "We always knew that something had to happen there so that more could change here. You made this possible – you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expected."

Many revelers were asked about what they were thinking as the wall came down 20 years ago. Uwe Kross, now 65 years old and retired, remembers those events fondly. "That night, you couldn’t stop people. They lift the barrier and everyone poured through," noted Kross, who also noted, "We saw it first on TV, normally it was very quiet up here, but that night we could hear the footsteps of those crossing, tap, tap, tap. All hell was breaking loose there."

Others spoke of the culture of those times. Dieter Nohnka, now 74, noted, "I was born in East Germany, I went to school in East Germany. I was supposed to teach the kids about the wonderfulness of the East, when I was secretly watching TV from the West." Merkel, putting the falling of the wall in perspective, also noted, "This is not just a day of celebration for Germans. This is a day of celebration for the whole of Europe; this is a day of celebration for all those people who have more freedom."