Brandenburg Gate August 1961. West Berliners gathered on the western side of the gate to demonstrate against the Berlin Wall, among them West Berlin's governing Mayor Willy Brandt, who had spontaneously returned from a federal election campaigning tour in West Germany earlier on the same day. It was closed throughout the Berlin Wall period until 22 December 1989. When the Revolutions of 1989 occurred and the wall was demolished, the gate symbolized freedom and the desire to unify the city of Berlin. Thousands of people gathered at the wall to celebrate its fall on 9 November 1989. On 22 December 1989, the
Brandenburg City Canal leisure traffic, due to its constrained size. Commercial shipping uses the Silo Canal, which descends through the "Vorstadtschleuse Brandenburg", crosses the "Brandenburger Niederhavel" upstream of the city centre and then skirts the northern edge of the city, before rejoining the River Havel in the Plauer See. <BR> Brandenburg City Canal The Brandenburg City Canal, or Brandenburger Stadtkanal in German, is a canal in the German state of Brandenburg. It provides a route through the centre of the city of Brandenburg an der Havel. At its upstream end, the canal diverges from the River Havel upstream of the "Vorstadtschleuse Brandenburg" lock.