WORLD CUP ’90 : REACTION : East Joins West in Party to Celebrate Triumph

West Germans shouted, “Deutschland! Deutschland!” honked horns and set off fireworks Sunday night, minutes after their team’s World Cup soccer victory at Rome.

East Germans also joined the wild night of partying.

The 1-0 victory over defending champion Argentina on a penalty kick by Andreas Brehme with six minutes remaining touched off a night of celebration.

Hundreds popped champagne corks and trampled bottles, leaving many downtown areas littered with glass. Others swigged beer and danced on car tops.

Tens of thousands of people, many carrying huge German flags, poured onto the elegant Kurfuerstendamm shopping street in West Berlin, holding one of their most joyous celebrations in years.

Thousands of East Germans watched the game on a huge outdoor screen in East Berlin, and others on their televisions at home. Dozens carried German flags with them, parading down the fabled Unter den Linden avenue.

“What a celebration!” said the announcer on West Germany’s ARD television network. “I think that for many people, this Sunday will have more than 24 hours.”

Thousands of raucous youths smashed bottles, overturned tables, destroyed concession tents and tipped over a giant keg of beer in the sprawling plaza in front of East Berlin’s Old Museum, where a 40-foot television screen had been set up.

Youths waved flags from both German states, danced on the hoods of cars and hurled hundreds of bottles. The plaza became an obstacle course of broken glass and other debris.

“East, West, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s just Germany,” said a jubilant Reyk Burghardt, 20, a railroad worker from East Berlin as he waved a West German flag.

A careening youth hurled a case of empty beer bottles onto the rubble-strewn square, than whirled around defiantly to see if anyone would challenge him. Another flung himself on the hood of a moving car in the parking lot of the Parliament building across the street.

Helmut Klemm, 41, shook his head and leaned against a railing that separated the museum square from the broad avenue in front of it, Unter den Linden.

“This was more violent than the revolution,” he said, alluding to the peaceful protests that toppled East Germany’s communist regime. “Why can’t they just root for the team?