BERLIN (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived for a two-day trip in Germany that includes meetings with German leaders and a visit to U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Pompeo will visit five German cities, including one that is home to a U.S. Army base where he served as a tank commander in the 1980s. In Berlin, he will deliver a speech highlighting the U.S. role in helping eastern and central Europe "throw off the yoke of communism," according to the U.S. State Department.

On Thursday, he is set to visit the site of the attack on a synagogue in Halle and the city of Leipzig, where mass protests set the ball rolling which led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.