The stars and stripes have been flying over the new US embassy in Berlin for more than a month, but nothing can detract from the powerful symbolism of the formal opening by former president George HW Bush on Friday.

The site is redolent of history. It was here on Pariser Platz right at the Brandenburg Gate that the embassy stood when Nazi Germany declared war on the United States in 1941.

Within earshot is the spot where Bush's predecessor, Ronald Reagan, called out to the Soviet Union's last communist leader: "Mr Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

And it was Bush, the father of the current president, who was in the White House when the Berlin Wall fell some two years later in November 1989.

Historic location 

Just round the corner is Berlin's Holocaust Memorial - the stark expanse of stelae commemorating the 6 million Jews who died under the Nazis.

And on the other side is the Reichstag. It was the arson attack on the home of the German parliament weeks after he took power in 1933 that allowed Adolf Hitler to pass the first laws giving him dictatorial powers.

The German parliament didn't take up residence in the historic building until 1999, after a gap of 66 years. Now the US embassy follows suit, after a 67 year interval.

Ambassador William R Timken has chosen Independence Day for the celebrations to be attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany on the "wrong" side of the Wall.

The architects, the Californian practice Moore Ruble Yudell, have inevitably come in for criticism over the new 130 million dollar building with its tasteful sandstone facade.

Berlin critic Gerwin Zohlen has called it a "boring" example of a 1980s style of post modernism that was already out of date.

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