Flags will be flown at half mast Berlin on the day of the funeral of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to be held on Saturday, the city of Berlin said.

“We would like to pay tribute to our honorary citizen and what he has done for political change in the German Democratic Republic,” said Berlin Interior Minister Iris Spranger.

Mikhail Gorbachev set the stage for German reunification, which took place just a year after the fall of the wall on October 3, 1990, Iris Spranger said.

Politicians from all German parties expressed their gratitude to the former Soviet leader, and some called for a street or square in Berlin to be named after Gorbachev.

The leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) and state prime minister Markus Sender called for a ceremony to commemorate the deceased. “Germany owes him a lot, he is one of the fathers of reunification and he offered freedom to millions of people,” he said in an interview with the newspaper Münchener Merkur, which will be published tomorrow, Friday.

At the other end of Germany’s political spectrum, Gregor Gisi, a former leader of the radical left party (Die Linke), also called for a memorial service for the last Soviet leader to highlight the differences between Gorbachev and current Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yesterday the President of the Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, advised the German leadership to attend the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, if there is such an invitation. “For my part, I advise the heads of state and government of European countries to accept the invitation if this happens,” the German politician said in an interview with Bild TV.

^{Source: AFP, DW, APE-MEB.}