 |
JFK in Berlin
June 26, 1963 |
A few months before his assassination nearly 62 years ago, American President John F. Kennedy, standing before the Rathaus Schöneberg
in West Berlin delivered what many consider his finest speech. In front of a crowd estimated at nearly a half million Berliners, Kennedy shouted out a clarion call of solidarity to the residents of that great city which at the time was an island surrounded by hostile neighbors who built a wall (sound familiar?) completely surrounding it. Here are some excerpts:
I am proud to visit the Federal Republic (West Germany), with your distinguished Chancellor (Konrad Adenauer) who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress...
Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "Civis Romanus sum", (I am a citizen of Rome)
. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"...
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...
While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system for all the world to see -- we take no satisfaction in it; for it is, as your Mayor (Willi Brandt)
has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together...
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
(It would be nearly another three decades before that day finally came.)
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." *
Twenty four years later in a much different time, a much different American president gave another speech in Berlin. Perhaps not as eloquent as Kennedy's, but it's message of democracy, freedom, progress and especially solidarity with the people of Germany the rest of Europe, and indeed countries all over the world would be our ally, rang clear as a bell.
Standing before the most enduring symbol of Berlin, the centuries-old Brandenburg Gate which at the time stood permanently closed just east of the Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan delivered perhaps his own greatest speech. In the middle of his remarks, Reagan spoke directly to the leader of the Soviet Union:
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!
Then came the money quote:
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
But Reagan's speech that day was more than a collection of aphorisms, among other things it was a history lesson. Here are a few tidbits:
In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign read simply: "The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen the free world." A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium--virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the European Community was founded.
 |
Ronald Reagan in front of the Berlin Wall
and the Brandenburg Gate,
June 12, 1987 |
The American government and their allies learned their lesson after the Armistice following the First World War, where the victors imposed harsh conditions on the defeated, the results of which planted the seeds of World War II. Realizing that winning the war against Hitler and totalitarianism was meaningless without winning the peace, the Marshall Plan was an initiative of the United States, to contribute mightily in both treasure and manpower, to the rebuilding of Europe, including its vanquished enemy, Germany. A similar plan was in place doing largely the same for Japan. Consequently:
...in West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.
As Allied victory over Germany appeared imminent in early 1945, the leaders of the "Big Three" Allied powers, the U.S. (Roosevelt), the United Kingdom (Churchill) and the Soviet Union (Stalin) met in the city of Yalta on the Baltic Sea to outline the post-war map of Europe. That map was formalized after the war during another meeting in the German city of Potsdam with Harry Truman replacing the recently deceased FDR.
In a nutshell, in exchange for Stalin's agreement to enter the war in the Pacific against Japan after Germany's impending defeat, Roosevelt gave in to Stalin's demands that Eastern and most of Central Europe, be brought under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, thereby sealing those nations' fate for nearly one half-century. **
It was also agreed that after Germany's unconditional surrender which would took place on May 8, 1945, the country would be divided in four, with each region occupied and governed by one of the main powers that formed the backbone of the alliance, plus France which would be brought into the mix. The capital city of Berlin was also divided into four zones, American, British, French and Soviet.
Germany's four zones would be tenuously governed as one body by the Allied Control Council, made up by representatives of each of the four powers. However, trouble was brewing as the socialist Soviets balked at the plans of the other three powers to collaborate economically. In addition, the U.S., the U.K. and France all made known their intention to eventually leave the Council, entrusting governance in the hands of the Germans. For their part, the Russians were especially distrustful of an independent, unified Germany, not unreasonable considering the unspeakable devastation the war brought to the people of the USSR.
Another major sticking point became the divided city of Berlin which was located in the heart of the Russian zone.
The city's precarious location and situation resulted in one of the first volleys of the Cold War as the Soviet Union, wanting Berlin all to itself, blockaded all land and water routes in and out of the city, literally in an attempt to starve its citizens into submission. That act was answered by the Allied nations who organized the Berlin Air Lift, which provided the city with the essential materials, most importantly food, to keep the city alive. It is said that there were nearly 300,000 of these flights in total over the period of one year, working out to about on plane taking off or landing in Berlin's Tempelhoff , Tegel and Gatow Airports every 30 seconds.
Seeing its futility in light of the resolve of the West Berliners and the Allies, the Soviets ended their blockade in the spring of 1949. But tensions between East and West only ramped up. While the three Western powers would remain briefly as an occupying force, on May 9th of that year, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany was announced, with its capital city moved to Bonn. In response, on October 7th of the same year, the German Democratic Republic (DDR in German, popularly known as East Germany) became a reality. Its capital would remain in Berlin.
Despite all that, after the blockade and the airlift, Berlin would remain an open city with unrestricted travel between east and west for a decade. This proved to be a dire problem for East Germany as Berlin became the major conduit for the exodus of nearly 3.5 million East German citizens to the West. To stop the hemorrhage, East Germany built its infamous wall that surrounded with city of West Berlin. Construction of the first phase of the Berlin Wall began on August 12, 1961. It's fall coincided with the collapse of East Germany, on November 9, 1989, a little more than two years after Reagan delivered his speech in Berlin. In that time at least 140 people, but probably more, lost their lives attempting to cross the wall from East to West.
The post-war tensions created by the Berlin Blockade, the creation of the two Germanys, and especially the division of Europe between East and West, all the foundations of the long-gone Cold War, have ramifications that are still felt today.
To bolster the defense of the new western alliance against the increasing likelihood of Soviet aggression, 1949 also saw the signing of the North American Treaty, the defense pact originally signed by ten Western European nations, the United States and Canada. The most significant element of the treaty is Article Five which stipulates that all members of what would become the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), would be obligated to come to the defense of any other member nation, should they be attacked.
While NATO has participated in numerous operations, mostly acting in support roles in European theaters of conflict, in all its years of existence, Article Five was invoked only once, after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Today there are 32 member nations, the last of which to date that have been admitted were Finland and Sweden which became members in 2023 and 2024 respectively, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, itself not a NATO member.
Finally, President Reagan in his speech in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987 invoked his predecessor:
When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.
Always successful or not, always sincere or not, promoting democracy, freedom and progress over the forces of tyranny, slavery and regression has been the stated goal of the Western Alliance which has held strong with the crucial membership of the United States as both its most powerful member and its greatest beneficiary for the eighty years since the end of World War Two.
Until now.
A couple weeks ago the current vice president of the United States addressed a group of representatives of the Western Alliance at their annual security conference in Munich, whose main concern at the moment was how to best support Ukraine in its ongoing war in Russia. He told them essentially the biggest threat to the world was not Russia, it was them. Then he said this:
In the United States, there's a new sheriff in town.
But that's a story for another day.
*Once again, I have to point out that the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner", one of JFK's most quotable lines, unequivocally means exactly what Kennedy intended, expressing solidarity not with a pastry, but with the people of Berlin. Looking like a fool, I learned this the hard way after bringing it up with German friends of mine in Frankfurt, one of whom a Berliner very much around at the time Kenndy delivered his speech. They both assured me the suggestion of the phrase being a malapropism was nonsense, mere urban legend, that no German then nor since, ever got a chuckle from the term having a double meaning.
Here's the deal: "Ich bin Berliner" without the article "ein", which some suggested he should have said, means "I am from Berlin", which Kennedy obviously was not.
**The United States' use of nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, made the Russin invasion of Japan a moot point.
,