In addition to the celebrations to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany also commemorated the Kristallnacht pogrom, the night in 1938 when Nazi supporters burned down synagogues and vandalised Jewish businesses.

Many Jews were assaulted and around 90 were killed in the explosion of violence, which historians see as being one of the most significant events in the lead-up to the Holocaust.

Germany's President Horst Köhler linked the commemoration with the events of 9 November 1989. He said the world would never have allowed Germany to reunify if it had not learned the lesson of its history between 1933 and 1945.

The president of the Central Council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, called on Germany to remain alert to the dangers of anti-Semitism, referring to last weekend's incident in which swastikas were daubed on the walls of a synagogue in Dresden.