German leaders observe a minute of silence during a ceremony at the Bernauer Strasse memorial GALLO/GETTY
Germany is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall with solemn ceremonies across the city and the opening of an expanded memorial for those who died trying to cross it. The events began overnight on Saturday at a chapel, with a seven-hour-long reading about the lives of those killed while seeking freedom as they fled East Germany for West Germany. At a sombre ceremony in Berlin, Mayor Klaus Wowereit, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff paid tribute to the 136 people killed trying to get over the Wall. Wowereit said the Wall, toppled in 1989, should serve as a reminder of freedom and democracy around the world. Church bells peeled while trains and traffic came to a standstill at noon across Berlin for a moment of silence for the victims. "We don't have any tolerance for those who nostalgically distort the history of the Berlin Wall and Germany's division," Wowereit said at the ceremony in front of a small section of the Wall recently rebuilt for posterity....
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