People celebrate 25 yrs of Berlin Wall collapse

• Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to West
• Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of Cold War

Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended an open-air event at the Brandenburg Gate, where white balloons marking a stretch of the wall were released to symbolise its disappearance. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from Communist East Germany to the West. Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War.

Within a year of its collapse, Germany - divided after its defeat in World War II - was reunited. Merkel had on aturday said an irrepressible yearning for freedom brought the Berlin Wall tumbling down. She called it a "miracle" that the Cold War barrier was breached without a shot being fired.

Speaking on the eve of celebrations, Merkel said Germany would always be grateful for the courage of East Germans who took to the streets to protest the Communist dictatorship. "It was a day that showed us the yearning for freedom cannot be forever suppressed," Merkel said in a speech in Berlin.

"During the course of 1989 more and more East Germans lost their fears of the state's repression and chicanery, and went out on the streets. There was no turning back then. It is thanks to their courage the Wall was opened." More than 100,000 Berliners and tourists wandered along a 15km route in the city centre yesterday where the Berlin Wall once stood, and 7,000 illuminated balloons are now perched 3.6-metres high on poles - matching the height of the Wall.

The artistic display of balloons, which illustrates how the Wall snaked through the heart of the city, is also porous to enable people to easily move back and forth between the former East and West Berlin.

Merkel, who was a 35-year-old scientist in Communist East Berlin at the time of the Wall's fall, said she remembered tension, fear and excitement in the air in the weeks and days leading up to the opening of the Wall. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to the West.

It began as a brick wall and was then fortified as a heavily guarded 160km double white concrete screen that encircled West Berlin, cutting across streets, between families, and through graveyards. At least 136 people were killed trying to flee to West Berlin and many ended up in jail for their attempts to escape. Communist regimes across Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989, heralding the end of the Cold War, of which the Berlin Wall had become a potent symbol.