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Washington State University

Honors Dean in Germany – Day 1

Fulbright U.S. Administrators in Germany Program

Statue of a lioness killed by an arrowToday was the first day of my U.S. Administrators in Germany program sponsored by the German-American Fulbright Commission.

I arrived in Berlin yesterday following an uneventful flight which started out from Spokane. The long leg of the journey from Seattle to Amsterdam followed an unconventional route, hugging close to the US-Canada border all the way to the Atlantic Ocean making the most of the strong tailwinds before heading up and catching the southernmost tip of Greenland before flying down over the north of England and into Amsterdam.

This morning I walked to the Siegessäule (Victory Column) and then turned east through the Tiergarten. The park reminded me of the amazing book In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson, which tells the story of William Dodd, America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The Tiergarten, which in the 16th and 17th centuries, was a hunting park where Ambassador Dodd took many walks from his nearby Embassy office on Bendlerstraße.

The Tiergarten is arranged like many European parks with surprises around every corner. The picture is of a statue made in 1872 of a lioness killed by an arrow. (In the past, the park was stocked with many wild animals.) Her tongue lolls out to one side, while the unknowing cubs play and frolic. The lion cries out in anguish – what else can he do.

My walk continues with a visit to the iconic Brandenburg Gate, which became a symbol of both East and West Germany (because no one could visit it) and now of Germany (because everyone can visit it).

I end at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Each of the concrete slabs appears the same and yet each is unique in its size, position, and relationship to every other slab. The stark greyness of the memorial and the realization that each slab represents over 1,000 Holocaust victims is very sobering.

Tonight I had dinner with our Fulbright program officers and my other Fulbrighters and am very much looking forward to learning more about Germany, its unique high education system, and building partnerships for the future.