After Berlin authorities refused to allow a statue of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to be placed in the city, the U.S. embassy unveiled a 7-foot tall bronze replica of the former statesman on its compound.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dedicated the statue on the embassy’s terrace over the weekend, overlooking the Brandenburg Gate where President Reagan gave his historic 1987 speech telling Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” The ceremony marked 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
For at least a decade, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation has been urging Berlin to allow the statue to be placed in public, although— according to Germany’s state-run Deutsche Welle—the “city authorities have always deemed a statue inappropriate.”
“The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which commissioned the artwork, expressed regret that it couldn’t be placed in a public space, as did former and current U.S. diplomats,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
The foundation had almost given up all hope, when U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell proposed the placing of the statue on the embassy’s terrace near the site where President Reagan gave his famous Cold War speech.
The WSJ noted that the current hostility towards the former U.S. president among some German politicians is rooted in “the West German left’s fierce opposition in the 1980s to Mr. Reagan’s unapologetic devotion to capitalism and his deployment on German soil of nuclear-capable missiles.” President Reagan’s “visits to Berlin were accompanied by violent riots from far-left protesters,” the business daily recalled.
“Berlin gets unwanted Ronald Reagan statue,” Germany’s state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle lamented Thursday. The “administration of the capital had so far rejected numerous applications from US officials and dignitaries. Despite this, the United States is going ahead with plans to erect a 7-foot statue of the late head of state on the balcony of their Berlin embassy.”
Deutsche Welle reported the unveiling of the Reagan statue:
A bronze statue of former US President Ronald Reagan was presented in Berlin on Friday, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unveiled the 7-foot (2.1-meter) statue, hailing it as a “monumental moment.”The statue sits on the embassy’s terrace, overlooking the landmark Brandenburg Gate and the site where Reagan gave his famous 1987 speech urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to support peace and “tear down this wall.”Pompeo praised Reagan, saying he “courageously denounced the greatest threat to that freedom, the Soviet empire, the evil empire.”
In an op-ed published in 26 European countries, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas omitted any mention of the U.S. in ending the Cold War and paving the way for German unification. “Germany unity was a gift from Europe to Germany,” German minister claimed in the op-ed celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“Dear Minister Maas, on behalf of the late President Reagan, whom you don’t mention, and the millions of American Soldiers who served in West Germany along with other NATO Allies,” the former commanding general of the U.S. Army Europe, Ben Hodges, responded on Twitter, “We are very happy for a reunified Germany.”
German President, and socialist politician, Frank-Walter Steinmeier lectured the U.S. on “mutual respect” and slammed President Donald Trump’s American First policy in his speech marking the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
British newspaper Daily Telegraph reported:
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged the United States to be a “mutually respectful partner” and reject nationalism, in a clear salvo aimed at US leader Donald Trump as Germany on Saturday marked 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (…) [I]n a swipe at Trump’s America First policy and his insistence on building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, Steinmeier voiced a yearning for a return of the transatlantic partner of the past.”This America as a mutually respectful partner, as a partner for democracy and freedom, against national egoism – that is what I hope for in the future too,” said Steinmeier.
The hostility displayed by Berlin authorities towards President Reagan’s statue shows how the regressive left has permeated mainstream German politics.
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, German politics has taken a worrisome turn. Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU), once a fierce political and moral force against Communism, is now openly mulling aligning itself with the Left Party, the successor of the East German Communist party. The anti-Capitalist left, cheered on by the German media and mainstream political parties, is dictating government policy in the name of climate activism. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is committed to bankrolling the oppressive Islamic regime in Iran in open defiance of U.S. sanctions.
President Reagan’s “Berlin Wall” Speech
[Cover image via YouTube]
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