U.S Embassy Opens in Berlin

Berlin - The July 4 inauguration of the United States Embassy in the heart of this city is the last stone in the postwar edifice of a whole and free Europe, diplomats say.

But Berliners are calling the building – perhaps unfairly – an architectural 'triumph of banality' more fitting for a Kansas cornfield.

Either way, the event is rich in symbolism. The embassy reopens on land the US owned in 1941 when Adolph Hitler declared war on the US. The property abuts the Brandenburg Gate, a noman's land in the cold war, and is a block from the German Reichstag.

"It's a very big piece of history," says John Kornblum, a former US ambassador. "It's a look back and a look forward at a time when Europe is going to change very fast, at a time when the Germans see they can't always live under a big US umbrella."

The German reaction to the new embassy has been almost universal dismay at the building itself with some saying the security-manic Americans should have built it in the relatively safe suburbs. - Christian Science Monitor

A pretty disgusting looking building.