Ich Bin Ein Berliner.

From a speech by then US President John F. Kennedy to Berliners during the time when the Berlin wall is being put up by the Soviets to divide the country into East and West Germany. Kennedy arrived in Berlin on June 26, 1963, following appearances
in the cities of Bonn, Cologne and Frankfurt, where he had given speeches to huge, wildly
cheering crowds. In Berlin, an immense crowd gathered in the Rudolph Wilde
Platz near the Berlin Wall to listen to the President who delivered this
memorable speech above all the noise, concluding with the now famous ending.

The speech is not without controversy though. Apparently, JFK should have said "Ich bin Berliner"; the ein is an indefinite article implies that the President is a non-human Berliner. A Berliner is a Jelly-filled doughnut (from wiki the name of a doughnut
variant filled with jam or plum sauce that is thought to have
originated in Berlin, although it was not known under that name in
Berlin or nearby parts of Germany at that time, where it was called Pfannkuchen (pancake).) So the President literally exclaimed "I am a jelly-filled doughnut). He he he he..

Here's the speech:

I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished
Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West
Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished
Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and
freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American,
General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis
and will come again if ever needed.

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus
sum." Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich
bin ein Berliner."

I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or
say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the
Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism
is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some
who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them
come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism
is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie
nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

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. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many
miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from
you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share
with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know
of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives
with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of
the city of West Berlin. 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 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.

What is true of this city is true of Germany--real, lasting peace
in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied
the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In
18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned
the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their
nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people. You live in a defended
island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you
as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes
of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your
country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall
to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all
mankind.

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.

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."


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I guess the world today is divided in so many ways, but the love of freedom is timeless and universal.

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