Minute of silence for Berlin Wall anniversary
Flags flew at half mast on the parliament while church and regional authorities have called for a minute of silence at noon to remember at least 136 people who are known to have died in Berlin trying to cross the Wall
Berlin: Berlin on Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall started to go up with a memorial service and a minute of silence in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West.
German President Christian Wulff, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the East, and Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit were to attend a nationally televised commemoration followed by a church service at a chapel built where the Wall stood for 28 years.
Flags flew at half mast on the Reichstag (parliament), while church and regional authorities have called for a minute of silence at noon to remember at least 136 people who are known to have died in Berlin trying to cross the Wall.
Overall figures of those killed while attempting to flee from East to West Germany stand at between 600 and 700.
Berlin's public transport system stops
Berlin's public transport system was to stop all buses and trains at noon to honour victims, with electronic messages at stations marking the occasion.
The commemorations began overnight at a chapel on the former death strip with a more than seven-hour-long reading of the names and stories about the lives of those killed seeking freedom.
President Christian Wulff, who was to make a keynote address Saturday, has said the anniversary is an occasion for Germans to reflect on how far they have come since the darkest days of the Cold War.
"We have reason to be very pleased to live here and now," he told Saturday's issue of Die Welt newspaper.
"We can look with pride to East Germans' irrepressible desire for freedom and West Germans' solidarity with them."
