Bruce Springsteen Concert in East Berlin - July 19, 2013

After playing the first 12 of 32 songs that night, Springsteen stunned the audience with a message he delivered in German.

"I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down."

The crowd erupted into a delirious roar. "We all got the message, and it was electrifying," Jrg Beneke, a farmer who drove across East Germany to see the concert, told Kirschbaum.

To ram the message home, Springsteen went on to play his song Chimes of Freedom.

"You couldn't be at that show and not feel that hope for a change," Landau, Springsteen's manager, told Kirschbaum.

"The effect that the speech and then the song Chimes of Freedom had on the audience was spectacular. It was a moment none of us will ever forget. Bruce walked off the stage after the concert, and we said -- you know just personally to each other -- that we had a feeling a big change was coming in East Germany."

July 19, 1988, the Bruce Springsteen concert in East Berlin drew over 300.000 people. It was held deep in the city, as far away from the Wall as possible; and as it turned out to be, helped put the final nails into the coffin for one of the most repressive regimes on earth that had ruled the Eastern part of Germany for over 40 years. Cut off by Gorbachev from Russian support, economically and morally bankrupt; their currency not worth the paper it was printed on, the communist functionaries were desperate to take some of the pressure of them. They billed the concert as a Nicaraguan relief effort, which got Springsteen upset. He had agreed not to be paid, as no foreign exchange funds were available.

He performed for over 4 hours, doing 32 songs. After the 12th he spoke to the crowd in halting but understandable German "I have not come here for or against any regime', he said "I hope the day will come when all the barriers will be down". After his words he launched into ' Chimes of Freedom'

It was only recently, that STASI (East German Secret Police) files were discovered, that showed the immense impact this concert had on the developments over next 15 months until the 'Velvet Revolution' and Germany's reunification. Within days the Wall was gone and the Soviet Union had disintegrated, freeing all former Eastern European Countries from Communism.