Pope recalls Berlin Wall as 'frontier of death,' celebrates its fall
December 07, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI met with German President Horst Kohler on December 5, for discussions that centered on two anniversaries: the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
At a concert that evening, attended by both the Pontiff and the German president, the Augsburger Domsingknaben and the Residenz-Kammerorchester Munchen performed Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. At the conclusion of the concert the Pontiff spoke about the “unexpected dawn of freedom” that came with the collapse of the Communist empire. The Berlin Wall, he said, had been “a frontier of death which for many years divided our homeland.” That wall illustrated the brutality of the Communist regime, he said: “What served the aims of the party was good, however inhuman it could be.”
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