On what date was the Brandenburg Gate officially reopened after the wall fell?

The Brandenburg Gate was officially reopened on December 22, 1989, after the Berlin Wall fell. The ceremony turned a former symbol of division into a powerful emblem of German unity.

The Wall had stood beside the gate since August 1961, and the crossing remained sealed even after East Germany opened the Berlin border on November 9, 1989. On December 22, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow jointly opened the new crossing. More than 100,000 people gathered to celebrate, despite heavy rain.

A common mix-up is November 9, the date generally remembered as the fall of the Berlin Wall. That date marked the opening of several border crossings and the beginning of the Wall's effective collapse, but the Brandenburg Gate itself reopened later. The gate was also not fully restored immediately: demolition of nearby Wall sections continued in 1990, and Germany was formally reunified on October 3, 1990.