A wall remains for many young Berliners

Older and perhaps wiser, the architects of what came to be known as the "collapse of Communism" were there: Lech Walesa, who had led the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland; and Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the USSR who, crucially, had ordered the East German regime not to use guns or force on the thousands who flocked to the Wall once they heard that "freedom" was a possibility.

And there was the new guard, representing the modern Europe and speaking on behalf of the four sectors of post-War Berlin: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Americans, President Dmitry Medvedev for the Russians, Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the British and President Nicolas Sarkozy for the French (although the latter has apparently attempted to re-write history by claiming on Facebook that he was also there at the fall of the Wall). The formalities were presided over by Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of the united Germany, who had grown up in former East Germany and who had walked over the border in those heady days of "liberation". Everyone wanted a piece of the action, just as two decades ago everybody wanted a piece of the Wall.