Brandenburg Gate existence of two German states and two Berlins, West Berlin mayor Richard von Weizsäcker said: "The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." On 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan spoke to the West Berlin populace at the Brandenburg Gate, demanding the razing of the Berlin Wall. Addressing the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan said, On 25 December 1989, less than two months after the Berlin Wall began to come down, the conductor Leonard Bernstein conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a version of the Ninth Symphony
Brandenburg Gate to 1919. The Kaiser granted this honour to the family in gratitude to Ernst von Pfuel, who had overseen the return of the Quadriga to the top of the gate. In addition, the central archway was also used by the coaches of ambassadors on the single occasion of their presenting their letters of credence to council. When the Nazis ascended to power, they used the gate as a party symbol. The gate survived World War II and was one of the damaged structures still standing in the Pariser Platz ruins in 1945 (another being the Academy of Fine Arts). The