‘Trump Has Created A Huge Chasm’ In U.S. Society: Capitol Siege Viewed From Berlin

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A group of former displaced persons helps to load the Freedom Bell aboard a Navy transport vessel in Brooklyn, New York, Oct. 9, 1950. One of the children, Eva Zandler, 8, originally from Poland, presents a scroll to be enshrined in the Freedom Bell Tower in Berlin, to Frederick Osborn, New York City chairman for the Crusade for Freedom.

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Native Berliners Jürgen Siegmund and Martina Pachaly on Kennedyplatz outside Rathaus Schöneberg where President John F. Kennedy delivered his ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech in 1963 and where, in 1950, General Lucius D. Clay oversaw the installation of the Freedom Bell.

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Clara Rienits, a high school politics teacher in Berlin.

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Pejram Tahmasbi, a small business owner in Berlin.

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Pejram Tahmasbi, a small business owner in Berlin.

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Tahmasbi was born in Iran and came to then-West Berlin as a teenager in 1985, after claiming asylum near Nuremberg in what was then West Germany. He used to play basketball with U.S. military officers’ children, who used to sneak him into the canteen at the nearby barracks where their parents were stationed. The memory of the welcome he received as a refugee from the military kids has remained with him.

He was enamored by the ideals of American freedom at the time, he says. But in light of the mess he believes the U.S. has created in the Middle East, he adds, he has become more cynical of such ideals.

Still, watching recent events unfold in the U.S. has been painful, Tahmasbi says. He argues that «a nasty mix of narcissism and racism is leading to fascism and endangers the future of America.

Seventy-one-year-old retired architect Richard Hühner, also walking his dog in the park, believes President Trump incited the insurrection in Washington, which he says is «unacceptable.

He points out that in August, far-right protesters also attempted to storm Germany’s parliament in Berlin, the Bundestag. «I simply don’t understand what’s going on in the heads of these people. Germany should have learned its lesson by now, he says.

He worries about knock-on effects the U.S. events could have on Europe, a concern that former U.S. Ambassador to Germany John Kornblum says is not uncommon. «Europeans, especially Germans, draw much of their economic and cultural energy from the United States, he says.

Like many German politicians looking forward to the Biden administration, Kornblum sees reason for hope and believes trans-Atlantic ties remain strong, despite damage caused by Trump. «U.S.-European relations are actually quite good, says Kornblum, who served as ambassador in Berlin from 1997 to 2001. «The coronavirus has of course thrown everything off course, but cooperation between German and American societies, even after Trump, has hardly been better.

On the other side of the park next to Schöneberg borough city hall, the neon letters RIAS light up a large, curved 1930s building. The initials stand for Radio in the American Sector, a German-language station — under U.S. control — that officially aired in West Germany but also reached East Germany, despite the latter’s attempts to jam the frequency. RIAS’ jingle went «Eine freie Stimme in der freien Welt — «A free voice in the free world. And every Sunday, the station would broadcast the two-minute peal of the Freedom Bell.

RIAS went off the air in 1993, as the Cold War ended. The German public broadcaster that moved into its studios, Deutschlandradio, has continued the tradition, issuing a weekly reminder of a hard-fought freedom across Germany.