BERLIN: The US Embassy in Berlin was unveiling a statue of Ronald Reagan Friday, on a site overlooking the location of the former president’s iconic speech imploring the Soviet Union to remove the Berlin Wall.
The larger-than-life statue is being installed atop the embassy’s terrace, at eye-level with the landmark Brandenburg Gate in downtown Berlin. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the guest of honor.
Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The gate, on the East German side of the Wall, was the backdrop for Reagan’s 1987 speech when he challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to go further with the reforms he was instituting.
Reagan implored him: “If you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas drew domestic and international flak recently for failing to mention Reagan — or any other American — in an op-ed published in 26 European newspapers focused on the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of communism.
“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 your other NATO Allies, you’re welcome,” former US Army Europe commander, retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, wrote on Twitter.
Maas sought to defuse the criticism Thursday at an event with Pompeo, saying “we owe you our freedom and unity to a decisive degree,” while singling out contributions from Reagan and former President George H.W. Bush.
US Ambassador Richard Grenell earlier this year opened a multimedia exhibit on the same terrace focusing on Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech, and said the statue was a tribute to a president whose “willingness to defend people seeking greater freedom around the world remains an inspiration today to Germans, Americans and every human being.”
“As a Californian, I’m personally proud to have our former Governor and President of the United States standing atop the Embassy, reminding visitors of America’s commitment to democracy and freedom,” he told The Associated Press.
Several American presidents visited Berlin during the Cold War to express their solidarity with those in the democratic West of the city that was divided by the Wall from Aug. 13, 1961, to Nov. 9, 1989.
Perhaps the best-known speech delivered by an American president came in 1963, when John F. Kennedy appeared at West Berlin’s city hall.
He told the thousands gathered: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Today a plaque marks that location and the square has been renamed “John F. Kennedy Platz.”
The site of the Reagan speech is marked with an information sign, and the lawmaker who heads the state committee in charge of memorials in Berlin, Sabine Bangert, rejected the suggestion by some that Reagan had somehow been given short shrift.
“The contributions of US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to Berlin as well as to German unity are well known in Berlin,” she told the AP.
“Kennedy’s ... ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech and Ronald Reagan’s memorable Berlin sentence from 1987, ‘Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall,’ as well as Barack Obama’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate in 2016, are in all of our memories.”
Reagan statue being dedicated in Berlin to mark Wall fall
Reagan statue being dedicated in Berlin to mark Wall fall
- The larger-than-life statue is being installed atop the embassy’s terrace, at eye-level with the landmark Brandenburg Gate
- Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
Near record number of small boat migrants reach UK in 2025
- The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday
LONDON: The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday.
The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May.
With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.
Home Office data as of midday on Wednesday showed a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England’s southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government.
The Home Office is due to confirm the final figure for 2025 later Thursday.
Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” when he was in power.
Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too “stark” and “binary” and lacked sufficient context “for exactly how challenging” the goal was.
Adopting his own “smash the gangs” slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people smuggling networks running the crossings but has so far had no more success than his predecessor.
Reform has led Starmer’s Labour Party by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of 2025.
In a New Year message, Farage predicted that if Reform got things “right” at the forthcoming local elections “we will go on and win the general election” due in 2029 at the latest.
Without addressing the migrant issue directly, he added: “We will then absolutely have a chance of fundamentally changing the whole system of government in Britain.”
In his own New Year message, Starmer insisted his government would “defeat the decline and division offered by others.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, urged people not to let “politics of grievance tell you that we’re destined to stay the same.”
- Protests -
The small boat figures come after Home Secretary Mahmood in November said irregular migration was “tearing our country apart.”
In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings “shameful” and said Mahmood’s “sweeping reforms” would remove the incentives driving the arrivals.
A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said.
“Our landmark one-in one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France,” he said.
The past year has seen multiple protests in UK towns over the housing of migrants in hotels.
Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the largest-ever far-right protests in Britain, organized by activist Tommy Robinson.
Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November.
Labour is currently taking inspiration from Denmark’s coalition government — led by the center-left Social Democrats — which has implemented some of the strictest migration policies in Europe.
Senior British officials recently visited the Scandinavian country, where successful asylum claims are at a 40-year low.
But the government’s plans will likely face opposition from Labour’s more left-wing lawmakers, fearing that the party is losing voters to progressive alternatives such as the Greens.
