Photos:: A look back at the Berlin Wall 25 years after it came down

A Sept. 9, 1961, photo shows East German police officers removing barbed wire from a portion of the Berlin Wall as other officers in the background raise the height of the wall.   (Edwin Reichert / Associated Press)

On Nov. 10, 1989, Berliners sing and dance on top of the wall to celebrate the opening of the border between East and West Germany.   (Thomas Kienzle / Associated Press)

West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 11, 1989, as they watch East German border guards demolishing a section of the barrier to open a new crossing point.  (Gerard Malie / AFP/Getty Images)

On Nov. 11, 1989, Berliners fill a newly created passage at Bernauer Strasse.  (Rudi Blaha / Associated Press)

East German guards watch in anticipation as they prepare to let East Germans enter West Berlin near the Brandenburg Gate.   (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

An East German driver is congratulated by West Germans as he passes through the first opening in the Berlin Wall at Wollankstrasse on Nov. 10, 1989.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

A man chips away at the Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate on the West Berlin side on Nov. 10, 1989.  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Visitors gather Oct. 28, 2014, at a mural showing former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, left, kissing former East German communist leader Erich Honecker at the East Side Gallery, a three-quarter-mile-long section of the Berlin Wall that today is a popular tourist attraction.   (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

A street musician wearing a mask performs at the East Side Gallery in Berlin in October 2014. Berlin will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with an installation of 6,800 lamps coupled with illuminated balloons along a 9-mile route where the wall once stood.

Visitors stand at an East German guard tower that once was in the so-called death strip between layers of the Berlin Wall.  (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

Concrete slabs that were once part of the Berlin Wall -- since painted by artists -- stand in a vacant lot in Teltow outside Berlin.   (John MacDougall / AFP/Getty Images)