Celebrations, remembrances and joyful exuberance enveloped Germany on Monday, the 20th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall came down, a momentous event that helped transform Europe and signalled the beginning of the end of communism on the continent.

Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and featuring a panoply of European, U.S. and Russian leaders - current and former - Germany and its citizens were set to celebrate the historical watershed with concerts by Bon Jovi and Beethoven.

There will also be memorials to the 136 lives lost of those who tried to cross the nearly 100-mile (155-kilometer) long barrier that vivisected Berlin in two and stood as the most visible reminder of what was then an intractable, seemingly endless Cold War between the West and East.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Sunday that "the ideals that drove Berliners to tear down that wall are no less relevant today. The freedoms championed then are no less precious."

Monday "should be a call to action not just a commemoration of past actions," she said.

Several leaders are coming to Berlin to take part in ceremonies, including the heads of state of all 27 EU members, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Clinton who, on behalf of the American people, accepted the Atlantic Council's Freedom Prize, a nod to the long presence of U.S. troops and support for West Germany from the Berlin Airlift of the late 1940s to visits by President John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said that Kennedy had "encouraged and inspired the people of Berlin when he stood before the Schoeneberg town hall in 1963 and said 'All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And, therefore, as a freeman, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner."'

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