The Berlin Wall, the ultimate symbol of the dehumanizing nature of Soviet communism, came down on Nov. 9, 1989. That means as of today, Feb. 5, 2018, to the amazement of anyone old enough to have seen its destruction, the barrier has now been debris for as long as it stood -- 10,316 days.

The unusual anniversary, Britain's The Independent reports, is being marked throughout Europe, including with a special edition of the Berlin Zeitung newspaper. It's also, of course, being celebrated with remembrances on social media.

In 1945, the capital of Adolf Hitler's defeated Third Reich was divided between U.S., British, French and Russian occupation zones for temporary postwar military rule. As the wartime alliance between the Western countries and the Russians collapsed into Cold War conflict, the division between West Berlin and East Berlin became permanent, with the former belonging to democratic West Germany and the latter part of a totalitarian state modeled on the Soviet regime.

In August 1961, with about 1,000 of its citizens fleeing over the border every day, East Germany laid down barbed wire and began building a wall to physically separate the two sides of the city.

During the wall's 28 years of existence, many desperate East Germans risked their lives to escape around, over or through it. Indeed, more than 100 of them were killed attempting to overcome the six-foot-high, 96-mile-long, barbed-wire-topped concrete panels.

East German citizens secretly dug tunnels under the wall. A former circus performer tightrope-walked across an out-of-service power cable.

An East German solider smashed a tank into the wall. The barrier held, but the soldier managed to successfully scramble over the wall, despite being shot twice by East German guards.

A man named Holger Bethke used a bow and arrow to send a wire cable over the wall, where his brother, who had escaped to the West nearly a decade before, secured it. Bethke then shimmied along the wire to freedom.

Then, with the Soviet bloc collapsing, the Berlin border suddenly opened in 1989. Citizens of both sides of the city began joyously hacking at the wall, and the world as everyone knew it changed.

"The history books say the Wall opened on one strange night in November of that year, but that's not quite right," wrote Marc Fisher, the Washington Post's Berlin bureau chief in 1989. "It was really a process that took several months, a process that consisted of the physical deconstruction of the wall, countless changes in people's daily routines, and a mental shift that was perhaps the biggest hurdle of all."

That mental shift among Berliners long since has been completed, but the wall still remains -- in the history books, sure, but also in the emotional and ideological landscape of both Berlin and the wider world.

-- Douglas Perry