Berlin Wall album "Innocent Eyes" in front of the Brandenburg Gate. On 25 December 1989, Leonard Bernstein gave a concert in Berlin celebrating the end of the Wall, including Beethoven's 9th symphony ("Ode to Joy") with the word "Joy" "()" changed to "Freedom" "()" in the lyrics sung. The poet Schiller may have originally written "Freedom" and changed it to "Joy" out of fear. The orchestra and choir were drawn from both East and West Germany, as well as the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. On New Year's Eve 1989, David Hasselhoff performed his song "Looking for
Berlin Wall expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased. The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" () intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the