GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for making change possible in East Germany as she visited what was once a fortified border crossing yesterday – retracing her steps on the night 20 years ago when the Berlin Wall fell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bornholmer Strasse bridge was the first crossing to open on November 9, 1989, following a confused announcement that East Germany was lifting travel restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Merkel grew up in East Germany and was one of thousands to cross that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She lauded Gorbachev, who crossed the bridge alongside her to cheers of “Gorby! Gorby!” from onlookers, for his role in pushing reform in former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You made this possible – you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect,” she told Gorbachev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Merkel also welcomed Poland’s former leader Lech Walesa, saying that his Solidarity movement provided “incredible encouragement” to East Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bridge crossing was one of a series of events marking the anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music from Bon Jovi and Beethoven was to recall the joy of the border’s opening, which led to the swift demolition of most of the wall – which snaked for 155 kilometers around West Berlin, a capitalist enclave deep inside East Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Memorials were planned to the 136 people killed trying to cross the border. Leaders of all 27 European Union countries and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were expected for the ceremonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wall’s opening came hours after a botched announcement by a senior East German official on a cold, wet night in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of a plodding news conference, Guenter Schabowski offhandedly said East Germany was lifting restrictions on travel to West Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pressed on when the regulation would take effect, he stammered: “As far as I know, this enters into force … this is immediately, without delay.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schabowski has said he didn’t know that the change wasn’t supposed to be announced until the following morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
East Berliners streamed toward border crossings. Facing huge crowds and lacking instructions from above, guards opened the gates – and the wall was on its way into history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for making change possible in East Germany as she visited what was once a fortified border crossing yesterday – retracing her steps on the night 20 years ago when the Berlin Wall fell. The Bornholmer Strasse bridge was the first crossing to open on November […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9,4,6,10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-culture-sport","category-featured","category-media","category-technology","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6210,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6197\/revisions\/6210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sealnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}