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Thousands of jubilant Syrians gathered in Berlin on Sunday to celebrate the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, sounding car horns and waving Syrian opposition flags.

"We're happy. The dictatorship is over. Assad has gone," said 39-year-old Ahmed, who preferred not to give his last name.

"All Syrians are together now," said the railway technician, who fled the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2015.

Germany has the largest Syrian diaspora in the European Union, more than one million strong.

Hundreds of thousands arrived in Germany after the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011.

Many live in the capital, Berlin, notably in the working-class district of Neukoelln, where a spontaneous outpouring of relief began early on Sunday.

Scores of people poured onto a main street in Neukoelln, waving the green, white, black and red flag of the Syrian opposition, before congregating on a square in the neighbouring district of Kreuzberg.

Many brought along children with their faces painted in the Syrian national colours, to voice their joy and relief.

The crowd quickly swelled into the thousands.

Some made the V for victory sign and chanted "Allah u Akbar" ("God is greatest").

Relief

Ahmad al-Hallabi, 27, was at the spontaneous initial gathering in Neukoelln with his two children.

"This government has finally fallen," the mechanic from Aleppo said.

"Ten years ago, I was in Syria and saw things no-one should have to see, things that are impossible to wipe from your memory."

"Assad is the worst terrorist imaginable," he said, explaining how he had fled Syria for Germany in 2015, via Turkey and Greece.

"I hope there'll be peace and everything Assad and his men destroyed will be rebuilt," he added.

The German government issued a note of caution as to the future of Syria.

"At this point it is impossible to assess what exactly is happening in Syria right now," said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a post on X.

"But one thing is clear: The end of Assad is a big relief for millions of people in Syria -- after an eternity of atrocities committed by the Assad regime."

'I knew moment would come'

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Assad had "oppressed his people brutally" and called for a political solution to stabilise the country.

Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian human rights lawyer who was granted asylum in Germany in 2014, spoke to AFP shortly before the government was ousted but as rebel forces were closing in on the capital.

"I knew this moment was coming because I believe that the Syrian people, asking for freedom, they will get it at last," he said.

Bunni, who was imprisoned in Syria for five years, contributed in 2022 to a court case in Germany that resulted in a former Syrian army colonel being jailed for life for crimes against humanity.

It was the first trial in the world to examine abuses committed by the Assad government.

Colonel Anwar Raslan, 58, was convicted of killing 27 prisoners and torturing at least 4,000 in 2011 and 2012 in the Al-Khatib jail in Damascus.

Bunni had recognised him in the street in Berlin.