2 Berlins Hail Opening of Brandenburg Gate

EAST BERLIN — The leaders of East and West Germany opened the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate today in a tumultuous tribute to the wave of freedom sweeping Eastern Europe.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl walked through a gap opened by East German army engineers during the night and was greeted by Communist Prime Minister Hans Modrow to the cheers of tens of thousands of Berliners on both sides.

Several people wept as the two leaders released a white dove of peace from the 18th-Century gate in a gesture underlining the new spirit that has pervaded the city since the first breaching of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9.

Built as a monument to Prussian power, the Brandenburg Gate, surmounted by a bronze statue of charging horses pulling a chariot, embodied German unity until Adolf Hitler’s defeat in World War II.

Kohl was the first West German chancellor to set foot in East Berlin, which Bonn has never officially recognized as the capital of East Germany.

“This is where the German Reich went down in the flames lit by German war criminals. The burning stench of war must never again be smelled here. . . . It must be a gate of peace,” Modrow said.

His speech was almost drowned out by East Germans chanting “Helmut, Helmut.”

Modrow implicitly condemned the building of the wall by hard-line Communist leaders in 1961 to stop a flood of refugees to the more prosperous, democratic West.

“It was supposed to serve people and it hurt them very much,” he declared. The opening ceremony was televised live in both countries.

Modrow also hailed the overthrow of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Some East Germans, whose revolution for greater democracy triumphed peacefully, wept openly at the killing of anti-government protesters in Romania this week.

Kohl avoided repeating recent calls for the reunification of Germany, which have alarmed both countries’ allies. He said: “Let us be patient and prudent in the steps we have to take to walk forward into our common future.”