:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 11.09.2009 ::

:: In Germany, an ode to joy ::

Fall of Wall commemorated World leaders attend celebration in Berlin
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service

BERLIN -- For once, Germans celebrated a moment from their tumultuous past without a pang of guilt.

World leaders, aging Cold War luminaries and tens of thousands of spectators packed the center of Berlin on Monday to commemorate a singularly joyful chapter in Germany's national history, the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

On a rainy night, spotlights bathed the Brandenburg Gate in a spectrum of color to mark the anniversary of the night -- Nov. 9, 1989 -- when Berliners spontaneously reunited their divided city and sealed the end of the Cold War.

"Almost everyone can remember what he or she did on that evening," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A young East German physicist at the time, Merkel had just finished her regular Thursday night trip to the sauna when a crowd swept her past a border crossing into West Berlin. "For me, it was one of the happiest moments of my life," she said.

In a symbolic procession, Merkel led a delegation of leaders from the United States, Britain, France and Russia -- the powers that divided and controlled Berlin after World War II -- through the restored Brandenburg Gate, from east to west. Joining her were French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Read more here.

A L S O

Cold War's End -- The Wall Comes Down
Huffington Post

'I'll always associate Beethoven's 7th with the fall of the Berlin wall'
Guardian UK

posted by me

:: 10:31:00 PM [+] ::
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