Hansi and Vera looked grim as they struggled to keep their place in the throng on the Unter den Linden, glaring at a boisterous group who swung bottles in the air as they swayed to the thumping anthems being pumped out on stage. "We were told that we couldn't bring bottles or fireworks in here," complained Hansi. "But look at them - everyone has a drink."
"Everyone except us," said Vera bitterly.
It was numbingly cold as 2 million people crowded into a three-mile area around the Brandenburg Gate to mark the millennium in the heart of the new Germany. A further million people filled up the side streets nearby until police sealed off the entire area at 11 p.m.
In a city that loves a spectacle, this £17 million party was on a suitably grand scale, with 60 bands and 1,000 individual artists performing on 10 stages as five giant screens transmitted pictures of celebrations elsewhere in the world. And vendors sold a million sausages and two million bottles of beer to the hungry revellers.
Hansi and Vera grumbled all the way to midnight but, like everyone else, they could only stand and gaze in wonder as, the moment the new century dawned, two giant fireworks transformed the sky over Berlin into a sea of brilliant colours. As the Sekt corks popped, everyone found somebody to kiss and join in a toast to the new year.
On the other side of the Brandenburg Gate, the rich and powerful were celebrating in a tent next to the Reichstag. Tickets cost DM1999 (£830) and the guests included the troubled former chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl. But many Berliners saw the new year in just as they do every year, at home with friends until midnight and then out on to the streets to explode tons of fireworks.
Germany's first millennium baby was Florian Vincent - born at the stroke of midnight in the Charite Hospital in the east of Berlin. Emilia Dogrusoez gave birth to two sons within five minutes of one another, but in two different millenniums. The first, Milcem, was born at 23.56 p.m., but his brother Mircan waited until one minute past midnight to emerge into the world.
