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Balloons of the art project 'Lichtgrenze 2014' (lit. 'lightborder 2014') reflect in a puddle next to remains of the Berlin Wall at East Side Gallery in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin where the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall is marked with numerous events on the weekend. (AP Photo/Steffi Loos)(The Associated Press)

People pass by balloons of the art project "Lichtgrenze 2014" or lightborder 2014, along the Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin, marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall on the weekend. (AP Photo/Steffi Loos)(The Associated Press)

Spectators walk alongside balloons of the art project 'Lichtgrenze 2014' (lit. 'lightborder 2014') in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin where the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall is marked with numerous events on the weekend. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Spectators walk alongside balloons of the art project 'Lichtgrenze 2014' (lit. 'lightborder 2014') in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin where the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall is marked with numerous events on the weekend. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)(The Associated Press)

Balloons of the art project 'Lichtgrenze 2014' (lit. 'lightborder 2014') reflect in a puddle next to remains of the Berlin Wall at East Side Gallery in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin where the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall is marked with numerous events on the weekend. (AP Photo/Steffi Loos)(The Associated Press)

Balloons of the art project 'Lichtgrenze 2014' (lit. 'lightborder 2014') reflect in a puddle next to remains of the Berlin Wall at East Side Gallery in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. The light installation featuring 8,000 luminous white balloons commemorates the division of Berlin where the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall is marked with numerous events on the weekend. (AP Photo/Steffi Loos)(The Associated Press)

BERLIN Germany on Sunday celebrates the 25th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall fell, a pivotal moment in the collapse of communism and the start of the country's emergence as the major power at the heart of Europe.

A 15-kilometer (nine-mile) chain of lighted balloons along the former border will be released into the air early Sunday evening around the time on Nov. 9, 1989 when a garbled announcement by a senior communist official set off the chain of events that brought down the Cold War's most potent symbol.

The opening of East Germany's fortified frontier capped months of ferment that ushered in Poland's first post-communist prime minister and saw Hungary cut open its border fence. The hardline leadership in East Berlin faced mounting pressure from huge protests and an exodus of citizens via other communist countries.

The collapse of the Wall, which had divided the city for 28 years, was "a point of no return ... from there, things headed toward a whole new world order," said Axel Klausmeier, the director of the city's main Wall memorial.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, is opening an overhauled museum Sunday at the site home to one of the few surviving sections of the Wall.

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Germany marks 25 years since Berlin Wall's fall as reunited, though unevenly prosperous, power