History of Berlin the wall at the Brandenburg Gate in scenes of wild celebration broadcast worldwide. This time no Soviet tanks rolled through Berlin. The wall never closed again, and was soon on its way to demolition, with countless Berliners and tourists wielding hammers and chisels to secure souvenir chunks. On Christmas Day December 25, 1989, the American conductor Leonard Bernstein shared with East and West Berliners and the world his Berlin Celebration Concert in order to celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall. "Ode to Joy", which Bernstein had reworded "Ode to Freedom", was performed. After the fall of Communism in Europe,
Berlin Wall was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin. On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree to West Berlin on 24 August 1961, the same day that East German police had received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping. Another dramatic escape