Over 500,000 people are expected to participate in the festivities, which will take place in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. The celebrations will feature a multicultural music program as well as lively presentations from all 16 of Germany’s federal states.

For some, though, the highlight will be a planned appearance on Monday by Germany’s straight-talking President, Horst Koehler, who in a message to the German people ahead of the event called Unity Day "a wonderful day."

The national holiday recalls the civil courage of East Germans whose mass protests forced the end of communist rule and reminds Germans of what has been achieved in a landscape that once abounded in crumbling infrastructure, Koehler said.

"[East German protestors] wrote one of the most beautiful chapters in Germany’s history and bestowed this gift on all of us in Germany," Koehler wrote in a statement.

"Many friends and partners helped us, and the whole world shared in our joy.

"One and a half decades have since passed, and we have achieved much thanks to the drive and solidarity of Germans in East and West.

"Towns in eastern Germany have been saved from ruin and reveal new splendor. There are new roads, railway lines and modern telecommunication networks.

"Internationally acclaimed centers for science and technology have sprung up. Considerable success has been seen with building up the economy.

"But we also know that many problems still remain to be solved.

"We have to steadily continue and deepen the modernization process," Koehler concluded. "I am certain Germany as a whole will ultimately emerge all the stronger."

Separately, Germany’s Ambassador to the United States, Wolfgang Ischinger, paid tribute to the vital role that the United States played on the path to German unification.

"We owe a great deal to the United States," Ischinger wrote in a statement.

"Without America’s unwavering commitment to freedom and democracy, Europe as a whole and many of its parts, including Germany, would definitely be a different place today.