Berlin, Germany (CNN) -- Thousands of people were expected to join world leaders in the German capital Monday to remember the night 20 years ago when a euphoric wave of people power swept away the Berlin Wall and consigned the Cold War to history.Events were due to be held throughout Berlin celebrating the demise of the iconic structure in 1989 and remembering the darker sides of the communist regimes that supported it.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain's Gordon Brown, France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were expected to be joined by figures from the last days of the Eastern Bloc.
Merkel, the first former East German to lead the reunified country, will join last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in a symbolic walk through the point where the people poured across the Wall on the night of November 9, 1989.
At the climax of events, a line of 1,000 giant dominoes is to be knocked over along a 2-kilometer strip where the Wall once stood, to represent the domino effect the structure's collapse had in ending communism across Eastern Europe.
Memorials were also to be held for the 136 lives lost of those who tried to cross the barrier that cut Berlin in two -- many in the so-called "death strip" at the heart of the Wall's fortifications.
A crowd of 10,000 people is expected to converge on the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of reunified Germany which once stood at the center of the no man's land between East and West Berlin.
Rock acts including Bon Jovi will join the festivities, echoing the popular music of the late 80s which soundtracked the cold night when rigid communist control gave way to an exuberant tide of people clamoring for freedom.
Testament to the powerful legacy of the Wall's collapse have been the vivid memories recounted by many of the dramatic and emotional events before and after the fall.
"It was a circus-like atmosphere, people were enthused and exuberant and thrilled to see the wall coming down," said David Paul Noel of Maryland, who was working for the U.S. State Department in Germany at the time.
Former CNN correspondent Richard Blystone, who watched the Wall collapse was struck by the difference in appearance of each side of the Wall
"On the west side, there was all this graffiti and dirty words, and names of rock groups and 'down with that' -- all the chaos of a pluralistic society," he said. "On the eastern side, it was clean and white, just so sterile."
Though dominated by nostalgia, Monday was also an opportunity to assess progress in a reunified Germany and democratized Eastern Europe, with many airing concerns that the world still has lessons to learn from the events of 1989.
With many in Germany feeling the economic, social and psychological divisions once demarcated by the Wall, Merkel said Monday that the country had yet to fulfil promises made when East and West reunited in 1990.
"Germany unity is not yet complete," Merkel told public broadcaster ARD.
At an event in Berlin on Sunday that launched festivities, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for renewed global action to liberate those still living under repressive regimes.
"Our history did not end the night the Wall came down," Clinton said. "It began anew. And this matters not only to tens of millions of Europeans, and to the United States, but to people everywhere."
She added: "To expand freedom to more people, we cannot accept that freedom does not belong to all people. We cannot allow oppression, defined and justified by religion or tribe to replace that of ideology.
"We have a responsibility to address conditions everywhere that undermine the potential of boys and girls and men and women that sap human dignity and threaten global progress."
source: cnn.com
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