Anthony Vilano was born in the USA and came to Germany as a baby.
In the interview he tells how he feels about his father's homeland.
Dachau
- If you heard Anthony Vilano talk, you wouldn't think that the 59-year-old had anything else flowing through his veins than urban blood.
In fact, the man from Dachau had a Texan father who was stationed in Bavaria as a soldier in the US Army.
In an interview with the local newspaper, Vilano, who runs a physiotherapy practice in Dachau, talks about his relationship to the former land of longing for many Germans.
Mr. Vilano, are you ashamed of what is currently going on in the US?
Anthony Vilano: No, and I'm really tired of that question too.
I've had to justify myself all my life: as a little boy in Etzenhausen for my unusual first name, as a young man to my friends for the Vietnam war, and now for Trump.
In the USA I am always the German, here I am the American.
So I have to keep talking about things that I can't do anything for.
Okay, to put it another way: What do you think of the current situation in the USA?
I think Americans are getting what they deserve.
What would your father say if he were still alive today?
My father was born in 1919 and fought as a US soldier in World War II and later in Korea.
So I think he would be very, very depressed if he had seen what Mr Trump did with the country he went to war for twice.
Her father was a soldier and a Texan.
How would you describe him?
He was definitely not a gun fool, unlike many other Texans.
When I visited him with my son in Brownsville years ago, we wanted to see the New Years Eve fireworks.
But my father said: 'No, you can't go out there, they're all crazy!'
They actually shot around with revolvers and machine guns.
The next day we found out that a neighbor of my father's had been shot by a stranger.
You were born in the USA yourself.
What would you say is American about you?
I came to Germany as a baby and grew up in Etzenhausen.
My mom was from Dachau, apart from the American kindergarten in Munich, I grew up and went to school here.
So what am i?
I would say: unique.
You have had German citizenship since 2018.
Why did you return your US passport?
Primarily because of the bureaucracy.
In an American passport - they don't have ID cards - there is no address.
So I had to present a registration certificate for even the simplest things like registering my car.
In order to open an account, I sometimes even had to present police clearance certificates.
And to get married, I needed a marriage clearance certificate.
So basically I've been toying with the idea of returning my US passport for years.
Then why did you hold onto it for so long?
Excessive bureaucracy does not only exist in Germany.
It took months to apply for expatriation!
This is only possible at the US Consulate General in Frankfurt, and there only on Fridays.
And only when there is no German or American public holiday.
Until you've got all the US tax papers together, I'll tell you ...
How did you feel when you finally had the appointment for expatriation?
That was more bureaucratic than emotional.
It was completely sober.
I had to pay almost 3000 euros and swear that I would take this step in full possession of my intellectual powers and without having been incited to do so by a foreign power.
Did you at least have a nice goodbye?
Let's put it this way: the employees at the consulate were rather jealous.
They said: You would like to go to the President too.
Speaking of the president: who do you think will win the race in the end?
I think Biden will.
But whether this huge tanker USA can be moved so quickly in another direction?
It no longer affects me.