One could follow an itinerary through the city of Berlin, traversing the scenes of the intimate relationship between the United States and Germany, and it would be easy to conclude that this is a world threatening ruin. It would begin at Tempelhof Airport, today an urban park. Between June 1948 and October 1949, the United States launched an airlift to break the blockade that the Soviet Union had imposed on the western sector of the city. The tour would continue at City Hall in the Schöneberg district, which at that time was the administrative seat of all of West Berlin. On June 26, 1963, two years after the communist regime built the Berlin Wall, John F. Kennedy delivered his famous speech from the building’s balcony. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he said. “I am a Berliner.” The itinerary would end at the Brandenburg Gate, which, during the Cold War, divided the city, Germany, Europe, and the world. On June 12, 1987, another American president, Ronald Reagan, urged the then-Soviet leader: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Two years and four months later, the Berlin Wall fell.

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