Merkel, Brown, Sarkozy Mark 20 Years After Fall of Berlin Wall

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel called it the “happiest day in German history.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy drove all the way from Paris to witness it, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said it helped build trust.

World leaders are gathering in the German capital today to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, an event that precipitated the collapse of communism across eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War and led to German reunification within less than a year.

“This day changed the lives of many people, mine included,” Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, said in a video message to the nation posted on the Chancellery Web site two days ago.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among those who will be at the Brandenburg Gate, which once loomed over the barbed-wire barrier that divided East and West Berlin for 28 years until the night of Nov. 9, 1989.

Merkel and the representatives of the four powers that controlled Berlin from the end of World War II until then -- Britain, France, the U.S. and Russia -- will symbolically walk through the gate at the climax of the “Fest der Freiheit,” or Freedom Festival.

“The wall that had imprisoned half a city, half a country, half a continent, half a world for nearly a third of a century was swept away by the greatest force of all: the unbreakable spirit of men and women who dared to dream,” Brown will say in a speech tonight, according to excerpts e-mailed by his office.

Lech Walesa

The party will feature 1,000 giant dominoes made to look like Wall segments lining a 1.5 kilometer (0.9 mile) stretch of the original. Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement who went on to become Polish president, is due to topple the first domino, setting off a chain across the city.

The commemorations began with a service at the Gethsemane Church in eastern Berlin, center of the peaceful protest movement that helped bring down the Wall. Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, was due to be joined by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, architect of the policies that loosened Moscow’s grip over its East European dominions.

From there, Merkel will walk over the bridge at Bornholmer Strasse, a former east-west crossing point where thousands of East Berliners amassed 20 years ago demanding passage to the West. They had responded to an unexpected announcement by the communist government allowing visa-free travel.

While there was confusion about the law, border guards at the checkpoint were unable to turn back the crowd and gave way, triggering the breakdown of the heavily guarded border.

‘Chisel Away’

Bornholmer Strasse was the epicenter of events 20 years ago, said Jan Techau, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

“After it was really open, people immediately began to attack the Wall itself, to chisel away at it,” Techau said.

Among them was a 34-year-old Sarkozy, then a lawmaker in France’s lower house of parliament. He had jumped in a car that morning with Alain Juppe, a future prime minister, to witness the change they felt was coming. When they arrived, the Wall was already being breached and Sarkozy joined in.

“We headed for Checkpoint Charlie to see the eastern side of the city and finally confront this Wall and I was able to take a pickaxe to it,” Sarkozy wrote on his official Facebook Internet site yesterday. He attached a photograph showing him in front of the Wall the night of Nov. 9.

The images beamed around the world of Germans and others hacking away at the Wall often took place with the Brandenburg Gate as the backdrop. Daniel Barenboim will conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin in front of the Gate. The evening concludes with fireworks and a dinner for leaders hosted by Merkel.

Not Inevitable

The Berlin Wall’s fall “was an iconic moment,” yet “there wasn’t anything inevitable about it,” Clinton said in a speech to the Atlantic Council in Berlin yesterday. “History could have gone another way -- and in some parts of the world it did and it has.”

Putin, who served as a KGB agent in East Germany at the time, told Russia’s NTV television yesterday that Russia “might have done something differently to protect our interests.”

“What had to happen, happened,” Putin said of the events of 1989 and 1990. “Dividing the nation had no future. It was obvious to me that it’s impossible to hold back a nation in the modern world.”

The commemoration events have also brought together many of the key players who shaped events in 1989. On Oct. 31, former President George H.W. Bush joined his German counterpart from the time, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and Gorbachev at a ceremony in central Berlin.

Merkel, the first chancellor from former East Germany, said that Kohl’s promise to bring “flourishing landscapes” in the east has come to pass over the past 20 years.

“Things have happened over that period that we simply wouldn’t have thought possible,” she told ARD television.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 9, 2009 05:22 EST