Germany marks 50 years since Berlin Wall erected

Germany marks on Saturday the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall going up with solemn ceremonies across the city and the opening of an expanded memorial for its victims, AFP reported.

The commemorations began overnight at a chapel on the former death strip with a more than seven-hour-long reading about the lives of those killed seeking freedom.

The anniversary will also see the inauguration of a new section of a memorial on Bernauer Strasse, where there is an original section of the Wall, a museum and photographs of Easterners shot trying to escape.

The new exhibition illustrates the impact of the city's division on people in the East as well as the West.

At midday, Berlin is to observe a minute of silence in memory of the victims, with buses and trains scheduled to stop as part of the tribute.

The sudden move by communist East Germany to close the border in 1961 shocked the world and ripped a hole through Berlin that gaped for more than 28 years until the Wall finally fell on November 9, 1989 in a bloodless uprising.