Berlin Wall 25th Anniversary - Nov 09,1989 - Nov 09,2014

 

Celebrations are being held in Germany to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Fireworks explode above the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin as millions marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Concerts and exhibitions are being staged in the city and Chancellor Angela Merkel will later attend a huge open-air party at the Brandenburg Gate.

White balloons marking a stretch of the wall will be released to symbolise its disappearance.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from Communist East Germany to the West.
Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War.
Chancellor Merkel will be joined for the festivities by former Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.
The wall stretched for 155km (96 miles) through Berlin but today only about three kilometres of it still stands.
Within a year of its collapse, Germany - divided after its defeat in World War Two - was reunited.
A guard tower still marks the "death strip" between layers of the former wall that divided Berlin
 
 



A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the border between West and East has been lit up by 8,000 glowing balloons

An eight-mile stretch of the former border will be lit up until dusk on Sunday Nov 09,2014 when the orbs will be untethered and released into the sky

Beethoven's Ode to Joy, from his Ninth Symphony, will ring out as the balls of light are released into the night sky on Sunday Nov 09,2014

The Lichtgrenze - or lightborder - art installation was created by brothers Marc and Christopher Bauder

 Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit inaugarated the light installation in a ceremony near the Reichstag

Dozens of the balloons are lined up on the Schwedter Steg bridge in central Berlin to commemorate the reunification of the city

Crowds await the release of balloons into the sky along the former path - or 'death strip' of the Berlin Wall

Germay marks 25 years on Nov 09,2014 since the Berlin Wall fell as on November 9, 1989, the people of East and West Berlin brought down the wall and reunited a city that has been divided politically since 1945, and divided physically by the wall since 1961


The fall of the wall was part of the wider collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It was followed by the reunification of West and East Germany on October 3, 1990

   

German President Joachim Gauck (left) greets former Polish President Lech Walesa during the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall

Accompanied by Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (right) Ms Merkel places a flower in a joint of concrete segments of a remaining part of the Berlin Wall at the Berlin Wall Memorial

 

Three-year-old Hulda adds to the myriad of flowers placed in cracks of the former Berlin Wall

 

Google commemorates 25-year anniversary with video Doodle