I am a Berliner

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Speech given by John F. Kennedy on June 26, 1963 (length: 9:01 minutes)
Kennedy in his speech in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall "I'm a Berliner" (1st occurrence) ? / i "I'm a Berliner" (2nd occurrence) ? / i
Audio file / audio sample
Audio file / audio sample
Notes on the foreign language passages:
Ish bin a Bearleener
kiwis Romanus sum
Lusd z after Bearleen comen
Manuscript of the speech

“ I am a Berliner ” is a famous quote from John F. Kennedy's speech on June 26, 1963 in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall in West Berlin . After Kennedy accepted the building of the Wall in his first year in office as US President in 1961 , his visit on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift and his speech were intended to illustrate the continued solidarity of the United States with West Berlin. They made it clear that the United States would not abandon West Berlin to Soviet communism . Kennedy was by no means willing to take concrete action against the closure of the western sectors of Berlin, as this measure offered a peaceful way out of the Berlin crisis and secured the "three essentials":

  1. the right of the Western powers to be present in their respective sectors,
  2. their right of access to Berlin and
  3. safeguarding the security and rights of the citizens of West Berlin.

In the area of anti-communist propaganda , however, he saw a need for action. Therefore he traveled to Berlin in June 1963. His visit became an emotionally charged mass event without equal. The speech was broadcast live in radio programs as well as in television programs of the ARD and American stations and thus became an expression of both visual and acoustic symbolic politics in the Cold War .

Occurrence of the saying

The saying appears twice in the German language in the original English of the speech: at the beginning and at the end.

  1. “ 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'. "
    “Two thousand years ago the proudest phrase was 'I am a citizen of Rome'. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest sentence is 'I'm a Berliner'. "
  2. “ 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!'”
    “All free people, wherever they may live, are Citizen of Berlin, and therefore, as a free person, I am proud to be able to say 'I am a Berliner'! "

Kennedy also wrote down the sentences:

  • "Let them come to Berlin"
  • "Civis Romanus sum" ( German  "I am a Roman citizen" )

He previously practiced these passages with the journalist Robert H. Lochner in the office of the Governing Mayor Willy Brandt and had a transcription written down.

The phrase “Let them come to Berlin” occurs four times in Kennedy's speech when he warns against the trivialization of communism . The fourth time Kennedy speaks the sentence directly in German: "Let them come to Berlin."

Re-use

  • During the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, the US politician Madeleine Albright reported these words, probably noting that she did not want to appear immodest with regard to Kennedy, but still refer to the historical parallel: “Ja sam Sarajevka!” (German: “I I'm Sarajevo ! ")
  • The Brazilian author João Ubaldo Ribeiro ends the first chapter of his book Ein Brasilianer in Berlin with the sentence "I am a Berliner, as someone has already said."
  • As the keynote speaker at the awarding of the Carl von Ossietzky Medal in 2008 in the Berlin House of World Cultures to the citizens' committee of the Palestinian village of Bil'in and to the Israeli " Anarchists against the Wall ", Uri Avnery concluded his speech with the statement that Bil 'in is an example of moral courage and commitment, and that is why every decent person is obliged to declare: “I am a Bil'iner”.
  • The speech was used in a trivial form by the French electronic musician Gostan when he published the song Klanga in 2013 , in which he used parts of the speech as samples .

Misunderstanding in English-speaking countries

In the USA in the 1980s, a modern saga emerged according to which Kennedy made himself a mockery of Berliners through improper use of German grammar . The sentence “I am a Berliner” should have been correct (without an indefinite article), and Kennedy's phrase was understood by the Berliners as “I am a Berliner (pancake) ”, which led to great laughter. Although there is nothing wrong with this representation, it is still very popular in the USA and is usually quoted with great regularity as “I am a jelly (-filled) donut ”.

The oldest known source is the 1983 novel Berlin Game ( German : Brahms vier, 1984) by the British author Len Deighton , in which the claim is probably not meant seriously. However, it was picked up in the review of the book in the New York Times and probably held to be true there. A gloss in the New York Times on April 30, 1988 then brought the claim apart from this source for the first time. She was still in serious media peddled as the BBC , in The Guardian or the NBC . Also in an early version of the English language Wikipedia “I am a jelly donut” is shown as one of two ways of interpreting the sentence.

Memorial plaque on the town hall portal for Kennedy's speech

Apart from the fact that the indefinite article is correctly used in German for nouns that appear as a substitute for a class, the expression "Berliner" for the Berlin pancake was virtually unknown in Berlin in the 1960s, since it is simply "pancake" there. called. So the sentence is correct and was checked accordingly before the speech.

After the first occurrence (with an American accent) there is cheering. At the beginning of the next sentence there is a speaking choir of a small group, Kennedy starts several times and then thanks the interpreter (who cannot be heard in the recording): “ I appreciate my interpreter translating my German! ”(“ I am grateful to the interpreter that he translated my German. ”) This is what the following laugh referred to. In the German translation of the US embassy on the same day, this sentence is slightly changed to: "I am grateful to the interpreter that he translated my German even better ."

Aftermath

The speech was included in the UNESCO World Document Heritage list as part of the documents on the construction and fall of the Berlin Wall and on the Two-Plus-Four Treaty .

Others

Peter Lustig , who later became known as the author and leading actor of the television series Löwenzahn , was responsible for the sound of the film recording of Kennedy's speech.

literature

  • Andreas W. Daum : Kennedy in Berlin, politics, culture and public in the Cold War. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2003, ISBN 3-506-71991-2 (English translation: Kennedy in Berlin. Translated by Dona Geyer. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-67497-3 and ISBN 978-0-521 -85824-3 ).
  • Andreas W. Daum: I'm a Berliner. John F. Kennedy's address in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall in Berlin. In: Gerhard Paul, Ralph Schock (eds.): The sound of the century. Noises, tones, voices - 1889 until today. Wallstein, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1568-6 .
  • John Provan : I'm a Berliner. John F. Kennedy's visit to Germany in 1963. Berlin-Story-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86368-112-8 .

Web links

Wikisource: Speech in front of Schöneberg Town Hall on June 26, 1963 (John F. Kennedy)  - sources and full texts
Commons : Visit of John F. Kennedy in Berlin, 1963  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Kennedy in Berlin. Politics, culture and emotions in the Cold War . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-506-71991-2 , p. 7-16 .
  2. ^ Christof Münger: Kennedy, the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Western Alliance in the acid test 1961–1963. Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, p. 102.
  3. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Kennedy in Berlin. Politics, culture and emotions in the Cold War . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-506-71991-2 , p. 120-145 .
  4. ^ Berlin in the sixties (1). John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in 1963 in divided Berlin. (PDF; 100 kB). Information from the Zeughauskinos about the rerun in June 2013. Accessed on April 17, 2020.
  5. ↑ Andreas W. Daum: "I am a Berliner". John F. Kennedy's address in front of the Schöneberg Town Hall in Berlin . In: Gerhard Paul and Ralph Schock (eds.): The sound of the century: noises, tones, voices - 1889 until today . Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, p. 442-445 .
  6. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Kennedy in Berlin. Politics, culture and emotions in the Cold War . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, p. 130-138, 200-204 .
  7. ↑ Uri Avnery's Column: I'm a Bil'iner! In: zope.gush-shalom.org. March 9, 2013, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Video on YouTube , see video info. For the year of publication, see posting on November 16, 2013 on Gostan's Facebook account.
  9. ↑ Use of the indefinite article. In: Canoonet.eu . Retrieved April 17, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Jörg Fauser : Berlin, the old, crumbling Babel. In: Spiegel.de . May 7, 1984, accessed on April 17, 2020 (review of the German edition): "'Yes, I'm a Berliner,' I said, thinking about the fact that pancakes were also called Berliner."
  11. ↑ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt: Books of The Times In: Nytimes.com . December 12, 1983, accessed April 17, 2020.
  12. ^ William J. Miller: 'I Am a Jelly-Filled Donut'. In: Nytimes.com. April 30, 1988, accessed on April 17, 2020 : “What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as 'Berliners'. They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, 'I Am a Jelly-Filled Donut.' "
  13. ↑ Alistair Cooke - BBC Radio 4: “I am a jelly donut”. In: news.bbc.co.uk. October 6, 2003, archived from the original on January 14, 2010 ; accessed on February 28, 2015 .
  14. ↑ I am a Berliner. Image of the English language Wikipedia from December 20, 2001, accessed on April 17, 2020.
  15. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Kennedy in Berlin. Politics, culture and emotions in the Cold War . Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-506-71991-2 , p. 130-137 .
  16. ^ Construction and fall of the Berlin Wall and the two-plus-four treaty. In: UNESCO.de. Retrieved April 17, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Peter Lustig and the "olle Kennedy". (Video.) In: Tagesspiegel.de . June 25, 2013, accessed April 17, 2020 .