New U.S. Embassy in Berlin to open on Independence Day

BERLIN (AP) -- The United States will open its new embassy in Germany on July 4th on the same site as its pre-World War II mission, following decades of Cold War division and years of delays to meet anti-terrorism standards, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday.

"After 69 years, we are returning to that original site," U.S. Ambassador William Timken said. "We like to think of this as the closing of a cycle that extended back to the time when we were enemies of war, through the entire process of the unification and the airlift ... to the space where we are today as global partners."

Timken said "very senior speaking officials" would be on hand for the official opening, but would not comment on rumors that President Bush would attend.

"We hope somewhere in the process of dedicating this new facility he will be able to participate, but that's unknown at this time," Timken said.

Opening festivities include an economic symposium on trans-Atlantic relations, cultural events, fireworks and a July 5 street fair with American musical performances and food stalls.

The official opening comes some 16 years after Washington announced the embassy's return to a site that the U.S. government bought in 1930 before the Nazis rose to power.

With its entrance set on a bustling, traffic-free square dominated by the Brandenburg Gate, the embassy will complete the revival of a downtown plaza rebuilt from scratch after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

A fence and low cement posts will protect the chancery on two sides where it faces city streets.

Several construction workers were still busy Thursday putting final touches on the off-white facade of the building, which mostly was covered with large tarpaulins and steel scaffoldings.

Timken said the design of the new building, by the American architecture firm Moore Ruble Yudell, was "to be open as much as we can do it with the requirements of security, which today are different than they may have been in the past."

One hurdle was a law passed after the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998 requiring new embassies be built at least 100 feet from the nearest road.

Berlin officials balked at agreeing to the demand, saying it would cut into the city's main park. Washington broke the logjam in 2001 by easing the law's requirements for the Berlin project.

While building the embassy in an outlying area might have made security easier, Timken insisted that its rightful place was on Pariser Platz.

"It's a beautiful sight, a beautiful place. ... We're certainly happy that we're moving to this new location," he said.

World War II allies France and Britain have already built their embassies within a block of the U.S. site. Germany's national Holocaust memorial is across the street.

While the original budget for the building was $180 million, it later was reduced to $130 million, Timken said.

Despite the cuts, Timken said he commissioned several art installations. Among them will be a 40-foot-tall steel sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly in the interior courtyard, and an American eagle made by Germany's famous Meissen porcelain manufacturer "as a symbol of partnership that we all feel so strongly about."

The original embassy building was damaged in a fire in 1931 and by the time U.S. diplomats moved into it in April 1939, Washington had already recalled its chief envoy in protest over an anti-Semitic pogrom.

Remaining diplomats left in 1941 after the United States joined the war against Germany.

The building was badly damaged during World War II and later razed by communist East Germany. For nearly three decades, the site stood in the heavily fortified no man's land between East and West Berlin.

In 1987, then-President Reagan stood just a few yards away on the western side as he urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."

ay

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)