Germans Throw Party to Mark Wall’s Fall

With fireworks, concerts and a huge party at the landmark Brandenburg Gate, Germans on Tuesday celebrated the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A party in the former no man’s land that once marked the Cold War fault line set out to recapture the giddy exuberance of Nov. 9, 1989, and bring Germans together to celebrate their achievements.

Despite typically rainy weather, up to 50,000 revelers heard musicians play on five stages along the wall’s former path from the Brandenburg Gate to the former American-run border crossing, Checkpoint Charlie. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich gave an encore of his spontaneous 1989 performance at the wall.

Events climaxed with the illumination of flares along a 2 1/2-mile path where the wall once stood, and with fireworks behind the Brandenburg Gate.

The lead singer of the German rock band the Scorpions, Klaus Meine, sang the celebration’s anthem, “Wind of Change,” accompanied by 167 cellists.

Some street parties did not begin until around 11 p.m., the time at which, a decade ago, border guards opened the first barrier.

The event also served to remind the country of the lingering tensions that have thwarted the full reunification of its eastern and western parts.

Germany has struggled to overcome enduring psychological differences 10 years after the wall fell.

“After unification, we felt like apprentices again,” said Parliament President Wolfgang Thierse, who was a dissident in East Germany. “Many felt like strangers in their own country.”

Despite the euphoria now associated with Nov. 9, it is not a national holiday, largely because it coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht--the Night of Broken Glass--when Nazi storm troopers destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues 61 years ago, presaging the Holocaust.

That dark side of Germany’s history was remembered in speeches by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others in Parliament.

Kristallnacht “stands for our eternal shame and the unforgettable dishonor that the Nazis and their supporters brought upon Germany and the world,” Schroeder said.