BERLIN — With concerts, speeches and a torchlight military parade through the richly symbolic Brandenburg Gate, the people of Berlin said a long, ornate goodby Thursday to the American, British and French troops who have occupied much of this city since the end of the Second World War.

The Western Allies came as conquerors in the early summer of 1945, but they quickly came to be seen as vital protectors by Germans living outside the areas administered by the fourth World War II Ally, the Soviet Union--zones that would in 1949 become East Germany. The departure of the Western soldiers Thursday was seen by many here as closing the final, triumphant chapter in the history of the Cold War.

The last Russian troops left one week ago.

"We thank our American, British and French friends," said German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in one of many speeches by him, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, British Prime Minister John Major and French Defense Minister Francois Leotard.

"We will always remember that it was the presence of your soldiers that made it possible to breathe freely in Berlin," said Kohl. "They paid for the freedom of Berlin, and thus for the freedom of the whole of Germany. For this, they deserve our lasting gratitude. Today, as you leave Berlin, we can definitely say: Freedom has won."

Although virtually all the Western Allied troops are now gone from Berlin, Germany will continue to host North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, including about 100,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany as a sign of Washington's ongoing commitment to NATO and as a base for U.S. operations elsewhere in the world.

In 1990, when the Eastern Bloc collapsed, there were about 250,000 American troops stationed in what was then West Germany.

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Special tribute was paid Thursday to the American and British airmen who supplied Berlin with fuel and food in 1948 and 1949, when the Soviet Union blockaded the city in an attempt to force it into submission to communist rule.

"The (Berlin) airlift became a symbol of the steadfastness and solidarity of the Western democracies," Kohl told a crowd of guests in front of Tempelhof Airport, one of several Berlin airfields used for the lift; today it is a commuter airport. "The entire world witnessed the Western Allies' determination not to give way to the communist threat under any circumstances."