As a conciliatory gesture during the Christmas holidays, the section of the Wall next to the Brandenburg Gate was torn down during the night of December 21, 1989. On December 22, Hans Modrow and Helmut Kohl opened a new border crossing there. Brandenburg Gate, the city’s only remaining historic gate, marked the border between East and West Berlin for 28 years, becoming a Cold War symbol in the process. Since the fall of the Wall, Brandenburg Gate has functioned as Berlin’s emblem and as a symbol of reunification.