Ish bin ein Bear LEE ner

The "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech was delivered, by President Kennedy, June 26, 1963, from the steps of a city hall building called Rathaus Schoneberg:  he spoke to an assembled audience of 450,000.

(Double-take.  450,000 -- yikes that's a crowd...)

The Berlin Wall had been built 22 months earlier, by Soviet-supported East Germany, as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West.

People really thought that wall was bullshit, and this feeling comes through in the U.S. president's speech -- a person can listen to it on a site called "American Rhetoric" ... I listened, and noted that the president's voice and force, as he spoke, sounded pretty intense -- and when two people passed by, not knowing what they were hearing, they glanced in at me, looking startled -- ("What is that??!") 
(Well, it is President Kennedy, and he's somewhat riled up....ok?)

It was
a moment
in the era
of
the contest -- or, competition -- between freedom and communism, two distinct theories; two different ways of life.  It was remaining fall-out, and continuing conflict and tension after WWII and the new geopolitical picture.

The U.S. President says,
"Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen" ("Let them come to Berlin"): 

this challenge is directed to "those who claimed we can work with the Communists"...

He said,

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"].  Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"...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!"

On a site called The Historical Archive, it says:
The concept of free people everywhere identifying with, and supporting, the West Berliners, and expressing it as, "I am a Berliner" was a last-minute inclusion by Pres. Kennedy, in the speech -- he practiced the phrase in German in the office of Mayor Willy Brandt.  The president also created a phonetic card for the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" to ensure  he would pronounce it correctly.

People can go to The Historical Archive web-site and see the cue card, in Pres. Kennedy's hand-writing.  (I thought that was cool.)

Ish bin ein Bear lee ner
Kivis Romanus sum ...

------------- Also on that site it says the speech was "very well received" but the president's National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy felt the speech was a bit too strong and the text was revised to a softer tone before JFK delivered it to the Free University later on the same day.

If a person listens to the speech on the American Rhetoric site, you're hearing the Rathaus Schoneberg, outdoor version, and you hear the crowd hollering and roaring with enthusiasm; you kind of have to fasten your seatbelt, so you don't get too startled, as my associates were when they walked by, and it was playing.  (Maybe McGeorge Bundy was a little "scared," too...."Play it cool, man"...)  President Kennedy fought in World War II, and had been dealing, like all Americans had, at various levels, with the communist threat for 18 years -- the Wall was the latest affront; it felt, to the free world, like a step in the wrong direction.

JFK had said in his inauguration speech that the contest between freedom and communism was going to be a "long, twilight struggle" -- and those are aggravating.  I don't blame him for getting enthusiastic:  and the West German audience loves it....

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