Leaving the US After 30 Years: One Correspondent's Farewell to the American Dream

Introduction

After more than 30 years as a correspondent for DER SPIEGEL in the United States, the author of this piece is packing up and leaving. Their reflection — that the country they thought they knew no longer exists, that the image they held was an illusion now being replaced by something unknown — will resonate with many people who have spent extended periods living abroad. For expats and immigrants in Germany, this story holds a mirror to a very particular experience: the moment when a place you have made your home begins to feel foreign again.

When a Country You Love Becomes Unrecognisable

The author describes more than three decades spent covering the United States for one of Germany's most prominent news magazines. That is not a posting — it is a life. The relationships, the rhythms, the deep familiarity that come from living somewhere for that long are real and significant.

And yet, the author writes, the country they thought they knew no longer exists. The America they experienced, reported on, and understood has given way to something they describe as unknown. This is not a minor adjustment or a shifting political wind — it is, by their account, a fundamental transformation that has rendered their accumulated knowledge of a place suddenly insufficient.

For anyone who has lived abroad for a significant period, this experience will not be entirely unfamiliar. Countries change. So do we. The gap between expectation and reality — between the place we carry in our minds and the place as it actually is — can widen suddenly and without warning.

The Expat Experience of Disillusionment

There is a particular grief that comes with leaving a place you have genuinely loved and built a life in — especially when the leaving is driven not by your own desire to move on, but by a sense that something essential has shifted in the place itself.

Many expats in Germany will recognise elements of this story from their own journeys. Whether they left their home country because of political instability, economic hardship, or simply a sense that the life they wanted was elsewhere, the experience of watching a country change from a distance — or up close — is a defining feature of life as a foreigner abroad.

The author's account also touches on something less often discussed in expat communities: the illusion that we can ever fully know a country that is not our own — or even one that is. The more than 30 years the author spent in the US did not ultimately protect them from the shock of finding it unrecognisable.

What This Means for Those Building Lives Abroad

For expats and immigrants in Germany, this story is a reminder of the importance of remaining adaptable — and of not building too fixed an image of any country, including the one you now call home. Germany, too, is changing: politically, demographically, economically. The Germany that welcomed you may look different in five or ten years.

That is not a reason for anxiety. It is, instead, an invitation to stay engaged, to keep learning, and to hold your sense of home lightly enough that it can shift as circumstances do. The author of this piece spent more than 30 years in the US and is now, presumably, returning to a Germany that has also changed in their absence.

The experience of being between countries — of having emotional and biographical ties to more than one place — is one of the defining features of the expat life. Stories like this one are worth sitting with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this story specifically about US politics?

The piece is a personal reflection by a journalist leaving the US after more than 30 years, framed around a sense that the country has changed fundamentally. While the political context in the US is clearly implied, the themes of disillusionment, change, and the experience of living long-term in a foreign country extend beyond any specific political moment.

Why is this relevant to expats in Germany?

Many readers of Deutschland4U are themselves long-term residents in a country other than their own. The emotional and psychological dimensions of expat life — including the possibility that a place you love can change beyond recognition — are directly relevant to the community's lived experience.

Conclusion and Next Steps

This is a story about the human experience of living abroad: the attachment, the disillusionment, and the complicated act of leaving. If it resonates with you, it may be worth reflecting on your own relationship with Germany — and with wherever you came from. Expat communities, cultural associations, and counselling services for internationals in Germany can be valuable spaces for processing these kinds of experiences.

Source: DER SPIEGEL