Pan-European Picnic

Merkel thanked Hungary on Wednesday for its role in ending the Cold War. She did so during celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of Hungary's opening of its border with Austria, which allowed hundreds of East Germans to flee to the West.

"The people of Germany will not forget the contributions Hungary has made so that today we can all live in freedom," Merkel said during a speech outside the Hungarian city of Sopron.

Hungary's spontaneous decision on that August day to allow walled-in East Germans to leave the Eastern Bloc would pave the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of the same year. The events of that day became known as the "Pan-European Picnic."

Merkel said that history was made "in the footsteps of a few courageous people. What happened here was one of those steps."

"Hungarians gave wings to East Germans' desire for freedom," added Merkel, who grew up under the communist regime in East Germany.

Hungarian president Lazlo Solyom and Mayor Tamas Fodor looked on as Merkel laid a wreath below a monument commemorating the event. Officials also unveiled a sculpture, entitled "Breakthrough," that depicts people climbing out from the cellar of a destroyed building into the light. More than 1,000 people were in attendance, including several who had crossed the border 20 years ago.

Merkel also spoke to former Hungarian border guard Arpad Bella, who was on duty that day. Many believe his split-second decision not to fire on the approaching East German crowd probably prevented a bloodbath.

A picnic that changed the world

The border opening was supposed to be a temporary, symbolic gesture between officials on the Austrian and Hungarian sides of the border. Hungarian dissidents and Austrian politicians were to picnic together, and the crossing was to stay open for about three hours.

However, word spread among East Germans vacationing in the nearby Hungarian countryside, and hundreds of them flocked to the crossing near Sopron.

"We were not afraid at all ... if you want freedom so desperately, you do not think about fear," Simone Sobel, who walked across the border with her husband and two young daughters, told news agency AFP.

Between 600 and 1,000 people fled through the tear made in the Iron Curtain that day. Thousands more left three weeks later, when Hungary declared the border open for all East German citizens on Sept. 11, 1989.

svs/dpa/AFP/AP

Editor: Susan Houlton