The day JFK stunned Berlin
GERMANY hailed the endurance of transatlantic ties yesterday on the 50th anniversary of US President John F Kennedy’s stirring Cold War declaration “Ich bin ein Berliner [I am a Berliner]”, with celebrations across the reunited city.
Ahead of the main commemoration ceremony at the old West Berlin town hall where JFK addressed 450 000 people in 1963, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the historic speech remained “unforgettable for us Germans”.
“Berlin was a divided city, the Cold War had separated Germans along the Wall,” he said. “President Kennedy gave Berliners new hope in difficult times and all Germans new confidence.”
Westerwelle said last week’s visit to Berlin by US President Barack Obama, in which he borrowed tropes from Kennedy’s speech to call for stronger transatlantic cooperation on global crises, showed that the spirit of Kennedy’s pledge was alive and well.
“Shared history has
become vibrant German-American friendship, which in a world of fundamental change is as important today as it was then,” he said.
“In his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama underlined the partnership of values that binds us together, which Kennedy had hailed. That is a good foundation to weather the challenges of 21st century globalisation together.”
Kennedy’s visit on June 26 1963 came at a critical stage of the Cold War, and Berlin was on the front line. It was only a year since the US and Soviet Union nearly went to war in the Cuban missile crisis, and two years after East Germany’s communist regime erected the Berlin Wall, cleaving the city in two. In an electrifying 10-minute address, Kennedy gave Berliners what they wanted to hear: a condemnation of the Wall and a promise that the free world stood by them.
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us,” the defiant president said.
At the end, Kennedy uttered the immortal words: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner.”
His vow, just five months before he would be assassinated in Dallas, was greeted with rapturous applause from the crowds thronging the square. — Sapa-AFP