Thirty years of freedom
FOR almost 30 years it stood as a fault line between democratic West and communist East – a 12ft-high concrete scar dividing Berlin, Germany and Europe.
Yesterday, European leaders gathered to commemorate the toppling of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago.
“Together with our friends, we remember with deep gratitude the events 30 years ago,” said German president Frank-walter Steinmeier during a ceremony at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Street.
“Without the courage and the will to freedom of the Poles and Hungarians, the Czechs and Slovaks, the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe and Germany’s reunification would not have been possible.”
Heads of state from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic also attended the ceremony – marking their third decade of freedom from Soviet communism – placing roses in a small gap in the remains of the Wall at the memorial.
Joining them in laying a rose was Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was born in
‘Our European values must be defended’
East Germany. She said: “The values on which Europe is founded – freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, respect for human rights – are anything but self-evident. And they have to be filled with life and must be defended again and again.”
In August 1989, Hungarian border guards first allowed people from East Germany to cross freely into Austria, paving the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall three months later and with it the end of the Iron Curtain. Germany was reunified the following year.
Just two years before it came down, in 1987, then US president Ronald Reagan had ignored advisers and risked warming relations with USSR premier Mikhail Gorbachev when, during a speech in West Berlin, he challenged: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Germany is now Europe’s wealthiest nation but yesterday president Steinmeier warned against complacency.
“Liberal democracy is being challenged and questioned,” he said. “That’s why Germany and its European allies had to fight every day for a peaceful and united Europe, with each country having to do its part to overcome differences.”
And sounding a note of dissent following the end of official celebrations, a man wearing a uniform and holding a Soviet flag protested against the “dictatorship of capitalism” next to a memorial for those who died trying to cross to thewest.