Beholden to America

Double takes are quite common. Especially for first time visitors from the United States, who know little about German politics. Appearing like clockwork, just before annual commemorations of the end of World War II, such anti-fascist stickers harken back to a time when radicals were grateful for being liberated by the Americans.

Can you blame them? Imagine what would have happened if the Allies had not defeated Hitler. If only the US had been as proactive in reconstructing other European countries as thoroughly as it did Germany. Italy, for example, would have turned out much differently. Berlin, August 2011.