Much ado about Senator Obama in Berlin
Today Mr Obama is visiting Berlin, and as part of the visit he gives a public speech on … something. We don’t know yet what it’s about. All we know is that there has been a two-week-long brouhaha about where he could give the speech.
Yesterday the new American embassy building in Berlin was officially opened. The building has been a long time in the planning and making, but various security considerations have repeatedly led to postponements. Now that it‘s been built in the same spot where the USA had an embassy in the 1930s -a very rarefied spot at Pariser Platz, close to Brandenburger Tor- it has been variously described as functional, but uninspired. The comparison to the old Blücher Palais is interesting, but of course unfair - times have changed, and so have the ways of diplomacy. It‘s hard to say how much of that is due to said security constraints, but the building is certainly less adventurous than the nearby French and British embassies.