BERLIN - Three leaders who had key roles in the reunification of Germany gathered Saturday to share their memories of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Germany’s ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl, former U.S. president George Herbert Walker Bush, and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were honored at a gathering in Berlin for their efforts in reunifying Germany.

Former Chancellor Kohl now speaks with difficulty after a stroke and is confined to a wheelchair. He said that although Germany’s history was not always proud, Germans should be proud of their country’s reunification.

At the close of World War II, Germany was divided into two separate countries governed under separate ideologies of democracy and communism. The wall was built starting in 1961 and came to symbolize the divide between the so-called Iron Curtain and the democratic West.  

The wall was breached on November 9, 1989 as a worldwide audience watched on live television.

Source:  VOA News