Embassy of the United States, Berlin not be considered a capital until Berlin was unified. Relations with the East German state were hampered because of this policy, and by the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The wall made the site of the former U.S. Embassy, still owned by the U.S. government, an inaccessible vacant lot that was part of the security zone separating east and west Berliners. The site became accessible after the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, but remained a vacant lot until the 2004 groundbreaking for construction of a brand new U.S. Embassy. In the early 1970s the U.S., along
Berlin Wall beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came