Germany celebrates 25th anniversary since Berlin Wall’s fall

Germany today marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a pivotal symbol which marked the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism.

More than a million people are expected to join the tribute, festivities, while Chancellor Angela Merkel – who grew up in East Germany – will lead commemorations for those killed trying to flee communist East Germany,

The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people escaping from communist East Germany to the democratic West.

At least 138 people died trying to cross 155km of inner-German border checkpoints in Berlin.

A year after the Wall’s collapse in 1989, Germany – divided after its defeat in World War Two – was reunited, and started emerging as one of Europe’s major economic power.

Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a service for victims of the East German regime. Merkel will also open an overhauled museum today at the site, and laid roses in one of the remaining sections of the wall.

Merkel, 60, who grew up under the repressive eastern regime, said in her weekly podcast Saturday that the reunified capital of Berlin had become "almost a symbol of Europe's unification after the Cold War".

While chatting to crowds afterwards, she said it was important to think about all those who suffered because of the Wall, not only in Germany but throughout Eastern Europe.

Merkel will be joined later by former Polish trade union leader and president Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.

More than a million visitors have descended on Berlin for the weekend of festivities that will culminate later on Sunday at the Brandenburg Gate.

The monument itself was inaccessible during the partition of Germany and is seen as a symbol of the country's reunification.

On Saturday, people posed for photos in front of the few remaining graffiti-daubed slabs of the wall, or read information boards about life under Berlin's 28-year division.

A highlight is expected to be the symbolic release of nearly 7,000 illuminated white balloons, pegged along a 15-kilometre chain of lighted balloons along the former border will be released into the air in the evening.

Since Friday morning, 8,000 white balloons have been pegged to the ground along the former border. After sunset, they light up to form a 15km-long “wall of light”.