Originally Posted by mabus

I take this embassy as a sign that lately, a quantum of additional security for a few americans is worth more than an adequade figurehead for both the american spirit and the german-american friendship.

I hope that many americans still rate our friendship higher than a wall of concrete. Berlin has had enough of those lately.

Originally Posted by Stapo

Honestly I can't follow your (+ the spiegel's ) verdict on the new embassy.

I doesn't look that bad and honestly I'm more concerned, who is send over to work in there.

Maybe I'm hypercritical and a bit too focused on Germany, but I take it as a bit of an insult or stupidity, that the USA had sent ambassadors to my country, who couldn't speak one single, fu§%ing word of German.

Originally Posted by Si modo

They should be speaking the language of the host. That's not good. And, quick courses in the host language are readily available through State.

Originally Posted by jviehe

Im sure its a pretty common practice. Every nation has translators. It just happens that much of the world speaks english, so its not as neccesary to learn other languages. It makes a lot more sense for the international community to speak one language, than learn a few hundred.

Originally Posted by goober

This looks like the embassy plans drawn up during the 80's, influenced heavily by the takeover of the US embassy in Iran by militant students.
Featuring such amenities as ballistic glass windows, sand filled blast walls (to deflect the power of a car bomb upward), and grenade grates over the skylights.
The first of these I believe was built in Islamabad, I actually saw the list of world capitals ranked by the state department from most dangerous to safest.
I forget where Berlin was on the list, probably near the bottom, although those were the days of the Bader-Meinhof Gang and The Red Brigade so Europe was probably not considered as safe as say Canada.

Originally Posted by erikvv

It looks fine I think.

Originally Posted by Steve

Perhapse Germans would've preferred something like this:



That there's a lot of security is of no concern; there should be. That Germans are bitching about the security suggests to me that it's a good thing the security is there...

Originally Posted by mabus

'Fort Knox at the Brandenburg Gate': German Critics Slam New US Embassy - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News



Imagine you live in a city which has been a fortress for hardly fifty years. Imagine you live to see the day that fortress is becoming an open metropolis again, seeing your home-cities reputation as a center of art and cosmopolitanism beeing revived. Imagine finally seeing people coming from all different corners of Europe coming into your city, coming together peacefully. Just imagine the sweet taste of cultural exchange on your tounge, after decades of living isolated on an island, at the brink of a war.

And now, your best friend comes along, puts up his own place in your neighbourhood, in order to improve relations to you. And what he builts is a frigging cold fortress made of pure concrete, a lighthouse of paranoia. This is no embassy, this is an military-outpost in a world which, in contrast to many common american's perception, still is far from beeing hostile towards them.

I am dissapointed. You guys on the other shore have the money and the brains to built a fancy palace which suits both the city of Berlin and your own desire to improve your relations with us germans. You even might have enough star-architects to re-invent the architectural definition of "embassy". And you have the technology to make it a more or less safe place, anyway.

I take this embassy as a sign that lately, a quantum of additional security for a few americans is worth more than an adequade figurehead for both the american spirit and the german-american friendship.

I hope that many americans still rate our friendship higher than a wall of concrete. Berlin has had enough of those lately.