Berlin mayor to Donald Trump: ‘Don’t build this wall’

The mayor of Berlin is calling on U.S. President Donald Trump not to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

Berlin was divided by a wall from 1961 until 1989. It was built by the socialist dictatorship in East Germany to stop its citizens from escaping to the West, becoming a potent symbol of Cold War oppression.

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READ MORE: Reality check: Who will pay for Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico?

Mayor Michael Mueller said Friday that “we Berliners know best how much suffering the division of a continent, cemented by barbed wire and concrete, caused.”

He said Berliners “mustn’t simply accept that all our historical experience is discarded by those to whom we largely owe our freedom, the Americans.”

Citing former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s famous appeal to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, Mueller urged Trump: “Don’t build this wall.”