< U.S. Opens Embassy in Germany

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Heard on All Things Considered

July 4, 2008 - ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

In Germany, this Fourth of July is also the opening day of the new U.S. embassy. It's in Berlin, next to the Brandenburg Gate, right beside the former site of the Berlin Wall. U.S. diplomats and German politicians say the new embassy is a symbol of friendship and openness.

But as Kyle James reports, ordinary Germans aren't convinced.

KYLE JAMES: Pariser Platz is Berlin's showplace square and a tourist magnet. Visitors snap pictures of the Brandenburg Gate and the Quadriga statue on top. Now tourists have a new place to aim their cameras, a four-story sandstone-clad building in a corner of the square with a large American flag hanging out front. Carol Greene(ph) is from near Chicago.

Ms. CAROL GREENE (Tourist): I think it's impressive that it's so close to the Brandenburg Gate. The location is amazing. And it makes me wonder if, you know, that shows the relations between the two countries as being a very good one.

JAMES: Relations between Berlin and Washington are usually very good. But discussions over where to build this embassy often got tense.

Mr. ANDO McDERMOT(ph) (Tour Guide): And there was also a lot of controversy surrounding this embassy when it was being built. Now, the reasons for that is...

JAMES: As guide Ando McDermot tells this little convoy of bicycle-riding tourists, the embassy's construction ruffled some diplomatic feathers. After the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, the State Department imposed stricter security guidelines for embassies.

Washington wanted changes made to the area around Pariser Platz that many Berliners found unacceptable. At one point, Berlin's then mayor suggested that Americans just build a McDonald's on the spot.

But former U.S. ambassador John Kornblum thought the embassy belonged next to the Brandenburg Gate.

Mr. JOHN KORNBLUM (Former U.S. Ambassador): It is right at the spot where the Cold War was ground zero, so to speak. It is in the same general vicinity with the British, French and Russian embassies. It would have really been a great historical mistake for the United States to have had to pull out from that spot, and so we didn't.

JAMES: So compromises were made. The building design was changed to increase security, and construction went ahead. U.S. officials say the new building shows that America is an open country that values its relationship with Germany. But German architecture critics have slammed the design, calling it anything but open - more like a fortress with all the charm of a maximum security prison.

Mr. NICOLAS MAK(ph) (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung): You would have expected something that opened the window to what America could be.

JAMES: Nicholas Mak is an architecture critic at the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. He says the building looks like it belongs in Baghdad's Green Zone, not in a unified Berlin.

Mr. MAK: The building is really completely covered with fortificational elements. And it looks like an SUV prepared to go to war.

JAMES: Back on Pariser Platz, retired electrical engineer Dita Gahb(ph) isn't very impressed with the architecture, either. He also worries about possible terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S. mission.

Mr. DITA GAHB (Retired Electrical Engineer): (Through translator) If that building finds itself in danger, then the Brandenburg Gate will also be in danger. So you've got to wonder about why the building has to necessarily be here. They say it's tradition, but the world isn't the same as it used to be.

JAMES: The German breakdance group Flying Steps is performing along with U.S. artists at Saturday's America Fest, celebrating the new embassy. The U.S. hasn't been very popular with the German public for some years now, but thousands are expected to turn out for this party. They might not like U.S. foreign policy, but Germans do like the culture.

For NPR News, I'm Kyle James in Berlin.

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