Tens of thousands of Germans have taken to the streets of Leipzig to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a demonstration that set the ball rolling for the fall of the Berlin Wall a month later.<br /><br />Nightfall saw them descend on Augustusplatz, which in 1989 was called Karl-Marx-Platz, accompanied by the presidents of several former communist east European countries.<br /><br />While Germany’s overall anniversary commemorations are fairly low-key, this was a moment for a proud defence of democracy.<br /><br />“You just have to believe what can spring from the people, and it is so wonderful to be together here with you to witness the growth of this democratic community. I just want to celebrate!”, Germany’s President Joachim Gauck, himself once a human rights activist in the former east, told a special dinner.<br /><br />Among the guests were the former US secretaries of state James Baker and the German-born Henry Kissinger – as well as Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the country’s own ex-foreign minister and vice chancellor.<br /><br />The peaceful protest in Leipzig on October 9, 1989, is seen as a turning point of the former GDR’s fate.<br /><br />As some 70,000 people marched, some chanting “no violence” and “we are the people”, to the surprise of many neither the secret police the Stasi nor the army intervened.<br /><br />A month later to the day and the pressure on the East German authorities became too much. The border with the West opened and people were free to travel – the beginning of the end for the GDR regime.<br /><br />But according to Germany’s president, without the events of October 9 in Leipzig there would have been no fall of the wall in Berlin.
