Party in Berlin

Party in Berlin

Berlin is gearing up for the 20th anniversary celebrations of that wonderful and unpredicted event, the fall of the Wall.

Leaders from around the world are flying in, the security tightening. I've been out and about on a very cold day, walking through the excited crowds that are milling aound the Brandenburg Gate, which will be the centre of the ceremonies. The people look prosperous and happy.

Berlin the city is a work in progress, but here in the centre, Mitte,  the government buildings are splendid and lavish. It's difficult to imagine that where we're walking, underneath the Gate,  was no-man's land just 20 years ago, a bleak landscape of barbed wire and floodlights, patrolled by East German guards who did not hesitate to shoot-to-kill. 

There have been many retrospective articles in the German and international press this week. I enjoyed one eye-witness account in particular in the New York Times.

Of course, it hasn't all been happily ever after. The predictions of some, that the fall of the Wall marked the inevitable triumph of democracy and liberal economic policies seem naive and triumphalist now. 

We've swapped the grim certainties of the Cold War for a more chaotic, multi-polar world. The events of 1989 certainly changed lives across Eastern Europe, and the collapse of communism had dramatic consequences in far-flung corners of the world, from southern Africa to east Asia. 

Other regions, such as the Middle East, were comparatively unaffected. 

Even in Germany itself, reunification has not been an unqualified success. West Germans resent its economic cost, East Germans believe it was more a takeover of their former country than a merger of two equal partners.

But, make no mistake, the overwhelming mood here is one of celebration; commemorating the liberation of millions from cruel regimes, the lifting of the threat of nuclear war across Europe, and the reunification of a people in one nation.