; Whereas, that night, East Berliners took pickaxes to this hated symbol of oppression, and during the following three days more than 2,000,000 people visited West Berlin from the East; Whereas, on November 13, 1989, the United States Senate welcomed the opening of the Berlin Wall as symbolic of the beginning of the process of reform taking place in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and throughout Eastern Europe ; Whereas, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a wave of democratic governance swept the world; Whereas, by the summer of 1990, democratically elected governments had been formed in all former Warsaw Pact countries; Whereas the reunification of Germany was officially declared on October 3, 1990; Whereas the process of German reunification faced significant economic, structural, cultural, and political challenges both within Germany and in Europe and took dedicated political leaders and citizens, with the support of allied nations, over a decade to achieve; Whereas, on December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from over the Kremlin for the final time, replaced by the Russian flag; Whereas Mr. Gorbachev later said, The Soviet model was defeated not only on the economic and social levels; it was defeated on a cultural level. Our society, our people, the most educated, the most intellectual, rejected that model on the cultural level because it does not respect the man, oppresses him spiritually and politically. ; Whereas, since its reunification, Germany has become the world’s fourth largest economy, has served as a leading voice in the European Union (EU), the Group of 7, and the United Nations, and has been consistently rated by Freedom House as one of the world’s freest countries; Whereas the United States and Germany share a close and multidimensional relationship, including security cooperation and an economic and trade partnership