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Dominoes along the route of the Berlin Wall fall on November 9, 2009 in the culmination of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.

(© picture-alliance/dpa)

Germany marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in with an all-day celebration in Berlin that included foreign dignitaries, key players from the peaceful revolutions that swept Europe in 1989 and a spectacle involving over 1,000 foam dominoes.

Germany's Happiest Hour: November 9, 1989

Twenty years ago, the regime in East Germany was reeling from an unrelenting exodus of its citizens for the West and massive protests at home calling for the introduction of democratic reforms. With Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev giving the green light for change and democratic transformations already afoot in other Eastern Bloc states, the writing was on the wall that the people of East Germany would not put up with their recalcitrant and incompetent leaders much longer.

On the night of November 9, 1989 , however, few could have imagined that the Berlin Wall would be opened, peacefully and irreversibly, paving the way for a swift reunification of Germany less than one year later. That night, an East German party official announced at a press conference that a proposed law easing travel restrictions would soon be introduced. Asked when the restrictions would take effect, the confused official consulted his notes, and, finding no instructions, declared “immediately.”

As a result, tens of thousands of East Berliners collected at the border crossings, and the guards, who had no special instructions, could not hold back the pent up desire for freedom. In an evening, 28 years of brutal division gave way to a massive celebration that then Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher has called, “Germany's Happiest Hour.”

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Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and songwriter and East-German dissident Wolf Biermann retrace the steps of the first East Germans to travel freely to the West at Bornholmer Strasse.

(© picture-alliance/dpa)

The World's Eyes on Berlin

The Brandenburg was the backdrop for Germany's celebration in 2009, just as it was in November 1989. Where East Berlin's main boulevard once dead ended at the Berlin Wall, however, the new Pariser Platz is now the focal point of a united and reconstructed Berlin, now Germany's capital.

Heads of state and government including, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President, Dimitri Medvedev joined German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in the celebration beginning.  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton represented the United States, and Nobel Laureates Kofi Annan and Muhammad Yunus also addressed the crowd.

Tribute to Victims of Holocaust

The event kicked-off with a performance by the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim, which included works by Wagner, Schönberg and Beethoven in addition to a new work by former East German composer Friedrich Goldmann.

Schönberg's “A Survivor from Warsaw,” narrated by the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in acknowledgement that November 9 was also the 71^st anniversary of the pogrom of November 9, 1938. On that date, Nazi party members and their sympathizers destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany and Austria, marking the shift from a policy of discrimination and exclusion to one of deportation and destruction.

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A peaceful protest by West Berlin citizens in 1961 against the construction of the Wall. The big white lettering spells "Freiheit," or "Freedom."

(© picture-alliance/akg-images)

Domino Effect

The centerpiece of the festivities was the symbolic toppling of over 1,000 8-foot tall foam dominoes along the former path of the Berlin Wall between the Reichstagufer and Potsdamer Platz. The oversize foam tiles were decorated by students from Berlin Schools and artists from places whose histories have also been marked by division including Yemen, Korea and the West Bank.

The domino spectacle was intended to represent the courageous choices made by ordinary citizens, dissidents and leaders across Eastern Europe in 1989 that culminated in the destruction of the iron curtain. Appropriately, a number of key players from 1989 were in Berlin for the celebration, including former Soviet Leader Michael Gorbachev and former German Foreign-Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

The East German dissidents Marianne Birthler, Katrin Hattenhauer and Roland Jahn also spoke about their role in the fall of the wall. Birthler was a human rights activist who later became a member of the first and only democratically elected East German parliament and now heads up the federal commission charged with overseeing the files of the former East German secret police. Hattenhauer was a key player in the Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig that rattled the regime in the months before the fall of the wall. Jahn is an activist and journalist who was stripped of his citizenship in 1983 and forcibly deported to West Germany.

The historic transformations of 1989 were hardly limited to Germany, of course, and the pan-European nature of the peaceful revolutions was also reflected in the choreography of the domino ceremony. Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth both deserve credit for sparking the chain of events that brought down the Berlin Wall – Walesa for his activism in the Solidarity trade union movement and Nemeth for his decision to open Hungary's border with Austria in 1989. Together, they toppled the first dominoes at the Reichstagufer.

The fall of the wall also paved the way for the expansion of European unity, and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek started another chain reaction by toppling dominos at Potsdamer Platz.

When the dominoes fell at the Brandenburg gate, they triggered a massive fireworks display, and the international superstar DJ and native East Berliner Paul van Dyk premiered his anthem “We Are One,” which he composed for the anniversary.