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Passers by the remains of the Berlin Wall on November 4, 2019. REUTERS / Fabrizio Bensch

Thirty years ago, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the divided Germany went in less than a year to reunify. The event gives rise in the German capital to a week of commemorations that was launched Monday evening to culminate Saturday, the anniversary of the fall of the wall.

From our correspondent in Berlin

It began Monday evening on Alexanderplatz, where even 30 years earlier the largest event not organized by the East German regime took place at the initiative of cultural circles. This huge rally, between 500,000 and one million people, went into the background crushed by the fall of the wall five days later. Famous writers such as Christa Wolf and Stefan Heym took the floor, as well as the former chief of counterintelligence Markus Wolf, who was duly summoned. Many speakers argued for a reformed GDR and for a socialism with a human face. The slogans were often funny and incisive.

More than 200 events across Berlin for commemorations

" Thirty years ago something unprecedented happened in history. A people stood up without bloodshed , "said the Mayor of Berlin opening this week of commemorations. On the two buildings that survived the war on Alexanderplatz, a video installation recalled the key sequences of the time. Then the theater group "battleship red chaperon" (named after a sparkling brand of the former GDR) staged the event on November 4, 89 recalling the black pages of the past thirty years as demonstrations and other xenophobic pogroms.

There will be more than 200 events throughout the city. This year, a more decentralized concept was chosen with seven symbolic places of that time such as Alexanderplatz, the seat of the Stasi , the East German political police, a church where opposition to the regime was gathered. Video installations, films, discussions with witnesses and concerts are planned.

Giant concert and presence of Central European leaders

The culmination of the commemorations will take place on Saturday, November 9th. A meditation ceremony will be held in the morning at the memorial of the wall with representatives of Central European countries for which also the year 89 was a historic turning point. And at the end of the afternoon, a giant concert will be held at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate, symbol of the division and then of the German unit. Artists from the East of yesterday and today will also perform with video installations with historical reminders. Another installation "Visions in motion", a kind of carpet flying 150 meters long above the crowd makes small pieces of paper on which 30 000 people have in recent months written their ideas or hopes for the future.

Thirty years after the fall of the wall, this event remains central for the Germans. The emotion and euphoria of the time, however, gave way to personal or more general reports sometimes half-tone. Hence the idea of ​​less pompous commemorations this year, a survey published on Monday showed that 87% of Berliners are happy that the wall has fallen, 8% regret it, and in September another study showed that six Berliners Ten still considered the traces of division perceptible today.Reunification is greeted by two-thirds of Germans in another survey but one-third in the East draws a more mixed assessment of the last three decades.The radical changes of the economy in the former GDR in the 1990s and very high unemployment left traces but also the feeling among a number of East Germans to be considered second-class citizens.