BERLIN - The new US embassy in Berlin was opened Friday by America's last Cold War leader in a nostalgia-laden ceremony marking the mission's return to the site it last occupied in 1941.

Former president George H.W. Bush said the embassy, rebuilt beside the Brandenburg Gate in the former no man's land that divided Berlin during the communist era, "marked the symbolic rebirth" of US-German ties.

Bush lauded the Germans for their determination to become one nation again and paid tribute to former chancellor Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev, calling the last Soviet leader "our adversary cum partner."

"While others dithered, you never betrayed the beautiful dream that you are one people. Let history record that Germany and America took the decisive action that allowed a torn nation to heal," he added.

Bush, who was in the White House when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, said US-German friendship was "the strongest it has ever been," nearly two decades after reunification.

Angela Merkel, the first German chancellor to grow up in East Germany, said there were times when unity seemed impossible, but that the United States had helped it to happen.

"The return of the US embassy to the Brandenburg Gate is a historic moment. I lived just around the corner from here and for many years I did not think it would ever be possible to walk through the Brandenburg Gate.

"I thank president Bush for the role the United States played. We will always protect our friendship."

Fireworks, Broadway music and a barbecue were to round off festivities at the new mission that took four years and 130 million dollars (82.8 million euros) to build.

The old embassy was bombed during World War II and its ruins later razed by East German authorities to make place for the Wall.

Returning to the same address in a reunited capital was a symbolic move for West Germany's Cold War ally but also proved controversial as Berliners objected both to the aesthetics of the building and US security demands for the site.

The United States initially insisted on a 30-metre (100-foot) security perimeter around the embassy, something that would have required a central street to be moved and encroached on a historic park.

Berlin authorities accused the Americans of riding roughshod over the city's landscape while US officials said the Germans appeared ungrateful after four decades of protection during the Cold War.

Eventually the State Department settled for a slimmer buffer zone.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung has mockingly called the stark, imposing building with its bullet-proof windows "Fort Knox at the Brandenburg Gate."

But US diplomats have defended the design and said the embassy is a testament to US support for Germans during the Cold War and to improved transatlantic ties following the row between Washington and Berlin over the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

German commentators have focused on the fact that the embassy completes the reconstruction of Pariser Platz, the grand square that was flattened during World War II and lay barren during the Cold War.

Local artist Katherine Mark, who attended the rain-drenched festivities, told AFP: "The Americans must be here, it shows that we are a world city, not a village."

But Berlin's coordinator for US-German relations, Karsten Voigt, said for Americans the emphasis was on freedom and solidarity, symbolised by the Brandenburg Gate where former US president Ronald Reagan famously declared: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Voigt pointed out that unlike his son and outgoing White House occupant, Bush has remained a popular figure in Germany because of his fulsome support for reunification.

Bush earlier this week recalled how he struggled to convince former French president Francois Mitterrand and ex-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher that the time had come to unite West and East Germany.

"I can understand France and England being concerned but ... I thought the time was right to show our confidence by encouraging reunification.

"I dealt with Mrs Thatcher very carefully, that is how I always dealt with her.

"Francois, you know he said 'I like Germany so much I think there should be two of them'. They were not enthusiastic."

- AFP /ls