Money shortages in America, due to the Depression, plus soured relations with the Nazi regime (after 1933) further delayed the refurbishing of the damaged building.

In fact Ambassador Dodd asked the State Department not to rebuild or refurbish on the site because of the use of Pariser Platz as a Nazi showcase for rallies and marches.

In 1938 Ambassador Hugh Wilson (Dodd's replacement) was recalled to the U.S. by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in protest over the Kristallnacht (the rampage orchestrated by the Nazis against Jews in Germany).

In 1939 American embassy staff moved into the chancery on Pariser Platz, now refurbished and usable, but made the move somewhat under duress because Nazi building head Albert Speer had ordered embassies in the Tiergarten area vacated in preparation for the grand Nazi city plan called Germania.

With World War II underway, and the U.S. still a non-combatant, the staff at the embassy had placed large letters spelling "USA" on the roof of the building hoping this might help avert British bombings.

Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor the U.S. and Germany were at war; the embassy ceased operations altogether and its personnel were interned for five-and-a-half months at Jeschke's Grand Hotel, a resort in the spa town of Bad Nauheim.

U.S. chargé d'affaires Leland B. Morris and American diplomat George F. Kennan were part of this interned group.

The purely Nazi symbols were removed, but large cement eagles can still be seen at the corners of some of the buildings (including the one to be used by U.S. Mission Berlin) minus the swastikas that used to be below their feet.

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.

Since 1977, the facility was located at Neustädtische Kirchstrasse 4-5, several blocks from the former Palais Blücher site in the Mitte district.

The embassy building was built in the late 19th century as a club for Prussian officers, and after World War I became the home to a craft guild.

It was further announced that this new entity would function as an integral part of the U.S. Embassy to the Federal Republic of Germany located in Bonn.

The 1990 announcement also indicated that "during a transition phase, some functions, including consular services for Berlin and the territory of the former GDR, will also be carried out at the location of the present United States Mission at Clayallee".

In 1994 American, British, French, and Russian forces removed their remaining troops, leaving Berlin no longer an occupied city.

Virtually all of the locally hired employees at the U.S. Embassy to East Germany (1977–1990) were not German, but were from other countries—a group sometimes still called TCNs (third-country nationals).

It was also not unusual to see similar nationalities employed in the U.S Mission in West Berlin, although they probably formed only a minority, with locally hired Germans predominating.

The new 180 million euro Embassy building, conceptualized in 1996 by Moore Ruble Yudell, has its main entrance facing north towards the Pariser Platz.

The small Haus Sommer building, also housing a bank, is in between the northwest corner of the new U.S. Embassy and the Brandenburg Gate.

From 1960 through German Reunification in 1990, Pariser Platz held only open fields on both sides of the major boulevard Unter den Linden.

In 1992, the governments decided that a new American embassy building would be built on the site, and in 1993 a memorial announcing these plans was placed in the open field.

The design for the new embassy, by American architectural firm Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners, was finalized in 1996.

The main sticking points for the U.S. side had been the amount of stand-off distance between the public street and the embassy facade, with fears of a vehicle-borne bomb being the biggest factor taken into consideration.

The completion of the main structural parts of the building on October 10, 2006, was cause for a German construction ritual called Richtfest (i.e., the topping-out ceremony).

From 1946 until 2006, the Amerika Haus Berlin, located near the Zoo station and the Kurfürstendamm, provided an opportunity for German citizens to learn about American culture and politics and engage in discussion about the Transatlantic relationship.

Both the British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell and NSA expert James Bradford recognized a special shielding made from dielectric material used to veneer the top floors of other U.S. embassies in the world, which are accused of hosting operations of the worldwide Special Collection Service program.

[5][6] The claims have been underpinned by thermographic photos published by the German television network ARD, showing an intense emission of infrared radiation in the suspected top floor rooms.