Rebellion at the Berlin Wall

Confederate Battleflag at the Berlin Wall. Photo from Georgia Heritage Council

Despite decades of intense indoctrination, oppression, and intimidation, the German people finally shrugged off their government and stepped forward into the light of freedom on this date 20 years ago:

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.

Merkel said she was among the East Germans who, hearing Schabowski's words, thought "something might happen on the evening of Nov. 9." Like many others, she made her way across.

"We were speechless and happy," the 55-year-old recalled in an interview with ARD television.

A people who thought they'd been hopelessly conquered found a strength and solidarity that couldn't be destroyed, and a malevolent system that appeared unstoppable simply evaporated when exposed to sunlight. That day is coming for us, too.