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BERLIN - This November all eyes will be on Berlin as the city celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the fall of the mighty Berlin Wall. The wall that divided East and West and divergent ideologies is gearing up for a huge celebration.
Arguably the most moving historic moment of the 20th century was the ultimate fall of the Berlin Wall.
A host of events are taking place to mark this important date, with visitors from around the world flocking to Germany to commemorate the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
The present celebration marking 20 years of ``No More Wall`` will be named ``The Festival of Freedom`` by the German government.
The celebration will climax on the date of the anniversary, November 9, with a grand public party at Brandenburg Gate. The events include an artistic performance symbolizing the Fall of the Wall, with the toppling of a domino wall along the entire wall path, along with a large concert and a street festival.

Background
The Wall had been erected in 1961 on the orders of East Germany`s former leader, Walter Ulbricht, to stop people leaving for West Germany. For 28 years it prevented East Germans from fleeing to the West.
At the end of World War II, the Allied powers divided conquered Germany into four zones, each occupied by the U.S., Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union (as agreed at the Potsdam Conference). The same was done with Germany`s capital city, Berlin. In the zone controlled by the USSR, East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) was established.
The developments that began in the 1980s after then-USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who repealed the Brezhnev Doctrine (a doctrine named after the former Soviet leader), came to power, played a key role in the unification of Germany. The gist of the doctrine was that the Soviet Communist Party had the right to interfere in the affairs of other countries in case of a threat posed to communists on their soil. It is for this reason that Soviet troops based in Germany did not step in when demonstrations began in Leipzig on October 9, a month before the Berlin Wall came down.
Playing the role of a catalyst was the Church, though not the Catholic Church, which had an authoritative structure, but the Protestant clergy.
The Berlin Wall fell overnight from November 9-10, 1989, uniting millions and opening up the border crossings between East and West Germany. Its destruction, which was nearly as instantaneous as its creation, was celebrated around the world.
The Berlin Wall was not only the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany. It was also the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War.
The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of an era that those born after the 1970s may understand only as an historical factoid. It signaled the end of the Cold War and ushered in a new chapter in European history.

20 years later
So, 20 years later, what is going on in this unified country, which experienced such enormous upheavals in the last century but has now advanced into the new millennium?
There is one conclusion that can be asserted confidently: Germany is still sustaining the aftermath of its 45-year-long division. Analysts say 45 more years are needed for the country`s full recovery - both its socio-economic and spiritual and cultural restoration.
The Germans believe their country has fully paid its dues for World War II: East Germany had assumed the entire burden of war.
The economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was bankrupt on the eve of the Wall`s collapse. The productivity of labor accounted for only 20 percent of productivity in the Federal Republic of Germany. Economic insolvency had accelerated the country`s collapse both from the political and cultural-ideological viewpoints.
Rehabilitation of East Germany will be a laborious job for the country. 100 billion euros are annually spent in East Germany by West Germany, which means that half of the money earned in West Germany is channeled into rehabilitation. Of note, west Germans often describe the fact that half of their estate is invested in East Germany as an indication of their fair attitude toward their countrymen in the eastern part of the country.
It is worth mentioning, however, that these transfers account for just 80 to 85 percent of investment required for East Germany`s economy. Unemployment is still markedly higher - and the average salaries lower - in much of the east.
But there is also another problem facing a unified Germany: a culture and mentality problem.
The spiritual-cultural implications of the nearly half-century-long division are still there, and differences in the mentality of eastern and western Germans remain. For many Germans, the respective perceptions of the arrogant Wessi (westerner) and whingeing Ossi (easterner) are stubbornly enduring.
For instance, East Germans who are nostalgic for the GDR tend to accuse their western countrymen of arrogance and ``capitalist individualism`` which has taken hold in the West. They assert that relationships between people were better in the GDR and ``people were friendlier with each other.``
West Germans counter that people tended to be friends due to their economic needs and ``they just had to hold on to each other.`` In West Germany, they say, ``you don`t need friends to survive.``
Overall, West Germans accuse their eastern countrymen of ``ungratefulness.``
``East Germans are ungrateful for everything the West [Western Germans] is doing to help them,`` they say.
But divisions also remain strong, politically and psychologically, and Berlin`s electoral map after the recent parliamentary elections is striking - western districts voted overwhelmingly for the conservative Christian Democrats, while the city`s eastern half backed the Left Party, an alliance of ex-communists and socialists, and the Greens.
Perhaps most dramatically, in a recent opinion poll, one in seven Germans - 16 per cent of westerners and 10 per cent of easterners - said they pined for the days when the country was divided. For the former, the driving issue was the huge costs of unification; for the latter, the economic hardship endured over the last two decades.
Such thoughts were unimaginable during the undiluted joy of the all-night party that kicked off late on November 9 as West Berliners embraced the Easterners who flooded across the border. ``I woke up on November 10 and the world had changed forever,`` says Mr Beil, then a 30-year-old freelance photographer. ``I had never known a time without the Wall. I was two when they built it. It did not just run through the city, it ran through our brains.``
In the 1990s, after the euphoria of unification subsided, bickering emerged in society. And, though the Berlin Wall fell two decades ago, another divider, ``a wall in the heads``, still exists.
Present-day Germany views as its main objective restoring financial stability in Europe, as the country is the key economic power on the continent. Thus, extricating the Euro-zone from the crisis hinges, to a great extent, on an economic recovery in Germany.