The fall of the Berlin Wall: 20 years on
Mon Nov 9 2009 16:40:30
Germans are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Leaders from across Europe will join tens of thousands of revellers at the Brandenburg Gate, which has become the country's symbol of unity.
Crowds will relive the ecstatic scenes which heralded the demise of Communism in Europe.
On the night of November 9, 1989, following weeks of pro-democracy protests, the East German authorities suddenly opened the border.
After 28 years as prisoners in their own country, euphoric East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past guards to embrace West Germans on the other side of the barrier which had divided them for almost three decades.
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The scenes of jubilation on the 9th November 1989 as the divided German city united. .
