Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and a former mayor of Berlin, Eberhard Diepgen, on Monday unveiled a segment of the original Berlin Wall in front of the German Embassy in Zagreb, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of that wall, which was considered to be a boundary line between the then West and East worlds.
This segment of the Wall has been donated by a German businessman Axel Brauer and ornamented by graffiti drawn by Croatian artists. The Wall was built in 1961 by the then German Democratic Republic, more commonly known in English as East Germany. Germany was reunited on 3 October 1990. Addressing today's ceremony, President Mesic said that the sound of the falling wall had echoed in this area which had also been in the process of democratisation and pluralism.
President Mesic, however, regretted that "the wall in the heads (of politicians) in Belgrade, led by Slobodan Milosevic, had not fallen". The Croatian president said that Milosevic, the Serbian autocrat in 1990s, had been aware that the then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) could not survive "but he wanted to create a greater Serbia on the ruins of the SFRY". President Mesic said that the demolition of the Berlin Wall marked the end and collapse of the Socialist model and also marked the beginning of deep changes in eastern Europe such as transition and integration with NATO and the European Union. Diepgen said that the Wall evoked memories of "inhumane border throughout Europe".
He said that Croatia was a part of Europe. German Ambassador to Croatia, Bernd Fischer, added that today they were celebrating at this place with the next, 28th member of the European Union, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall just as representatives of the other 27 members were marking it in front of the Branderburg Gate.