Thousands Hail Reagan for Role in Freeing East Berlin : Germany: The former President chisels a remnant of the wall, whose destruction he called for in 1987.

Ronald Reagan took a chisel to a remnant of the Berlin Wall on Wednesday and strolled into formerly Communist East Berlin on a visit heavy with symbolism, drawing tears and shouts of “Thank you!” for his role in liberating the East.

The former President and his wife, Nancy, were cheered by thousands as they traced the scarred path left by the wall, a hated symbol of East-West confrontation that is fast disappearing as Germany reunites and Europe recovers from 40 years of division.

Only three weeks before formal reunification on Oct. 3, Reagan revisited the site of one of his most famous speeches to collect accolades from grateful Germans and bask in the euphoria of democracy that came to Eastern Europe after he left the White House.

He left in January of 1989, before the revolutions of that autumn overthrew Communist dictators from Berlin to Bucharest. But East Germans made it clear that they give him credit for their new-found freedom.

In 1987, Reagan stood before the graffiti-splattered wall and appealed to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to let Germany reunite.

“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate,” Reagan declared in the shadow of Brandenburg Gate, which was then sealed off in a Communist no man’s land. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Now, three years later, Berlin is repairing the ties broken after World War II and the 1961 construction of Europe’s most notorious Cold War symbol. A few stretches of the infamous wall still stand, chiseled into concrete skeletons by souvenir hunters.

Reagan examined one surviving expanse of the wall, accepting a hammer and chisel from photographers who persuaded him to strike a few blows.

The 79-year-old former President, now with a sprinkling of gray in his hair to enhance his image as elder statesman, had a message for Berliners who thronged his route.

“Young people should know that millions of people died for freedom, but freedom is worth dying for,” he told youths clustered near the Brandenburg Gate. The world rejoices in the fall of dictatorship, he said, “but we can’t be happy until the whole world knows freedom the way we do.”

Reagan was asked if the opening of Eastern Europe represents a fulfillment of his policies as President.

“I always tried to do everything I could for a day like this,” Reagan replied. “I’m so happy that all this has taken place and that there will be one Germany. It’s a wonderful time.”

East Germans shouted: “Germany loves you!” and “Thank you, Ronnie!” as the Reagans walked to the gate that until last November was inaccessible to both sides. One man tossed out an East German army helmet as a souvenir, and a child gave the Reagans a giant stuffed bear, Berlin’s municipal mascot.

Public relations workers trailed the swift-moving entourage, handing out autographs Reagan had signed in advance.

Three years ago, Reagan was jeered by West Berliners. The atmosphere Wednesday was remarkably changed. Germans from both sides were moved to tears as Reagan strolled among them.

“No other U.S. President was as denounced, slandered and insulted in Germany as Ronald Reagan,” the mass-circulation Berliner Zeitung noted Wednesday. “The truth is that Reagan is one of the fathers of German unity.”

“We have a lot to thank you for,” East German President Sabine Bergmann-Pohl told Reagan in welcoming him at the Volkskammer, the Parliament that will be absorbed next month into the West German Bundestag.

Later in the day, in a speech to the conservative Forum on Germany, Reagan said the wall had been “destroyed by freedom’s light.”

The Reagans arrived in West Berlin on Monday for the start of a 10-day European tour that will take them to Poland and the Soviet Union, then to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul II before returning to the United States.