(AP) BERLIN — With prayers, music and pomp, Germany on Monday remembered the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country's reunification.
Chancellor Angela Merkel – reunited Germany's first leader to grow up in the communist east – started the day with President Horst Koehler and other leaders at a prayer service at a former East Berlin church that was a rallying point for opposition activists in 1989.
"We remember the tears of joy, the faces of delight, the liberation," Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber told the congregation at the Gethsemane Church.
East Germany's fortified border crumbled on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, after 28 years holding in the country's citizens – a pivotal moment in the collapse of communism in Europe that followed a confused announcement by a senior official.
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At the end of a plodding news conference, Politburo spokesman Guenter Schabowski offhandedly said East Germany was lifting restrictions on travel across its border with West Germany.
Pressed on when the regulation would take effect, he looked down at his notes and stammered: "As far as I know, this enters into force ... this is immediately, without delay."
Schabowski has said he didn't know that the change wasn't supposed to be announced until the following morning.
East Berliners streamed toward border crossings. Facing huge crowds and lacking instructions, border guards opened the gates – and the wall was on its way into history.
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