List of visits by US presidents to Germany
The list of visits by US presidents to Germany includes all official, working and state visits to the Federal Republic of Germany since its establishment in 1949 by twelve incumbent presidents of the United States of America .
While Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter each visited Germany only once, the following Presidents Reagan, Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior and Obama each visited the Federal Republic two to six times. In addition, American presidents made several short stopovers at US military airfields in Germany as part of intercontinental flights over the years. The GDR, on the other hand, was never visited by an incumbent president of the USA.
Visits by US presidents before 1949 are entirely limited to Harry S. Truman's participation in the Potsdam Conference in 1945; transatlantic state visits were previously uncommon.
Overview
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The following overview allows you to look back at some of the historical visits by American presidents to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Eisenhower
The 34th President of the USA, Dwight D. Eisenhower , was the first President of the United States to visit the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany from August 26th to 27th, 1959 and was a guest in the federal capital Bonn .
kennedy
The 35th President of the USA, John F. Kennedy , was a guest in the Federal Republic of Germany and in West Berlin from June 23 to 26, 1963. He visited Cologne, Bonn, Hanau, Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden and Berlin (West).
Johnson
The 36th President of the USA, Lyndon B. Johnson , traveled to Cologne and Bonn from April 23 to 26, 1967 on the occasion of the state funeral for the first Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer .
Nixon
The 37th President of the USA, Richard Nixon , visited Bonn and Berlin (West) from February 26 to 27, 1969.
ford
The 38th President of the USA, Gerald Ford , paid a visit to the cities of Bonn and Giessen in the run-up to the CSCE conference in Helsinki from July 26-28, 1975.
Carter
The 39th President of the USA, Jimmy Carter , was a guest in the Federal Republic of Germany from 13 to 17 July 1978 on the occasion of the world economic summit in Bonn . He visited Bonn, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin (West).
Reagan
The 40th President of the USA, Ronald Reagan , visited the Federal Republic of Germany three times during his eight-year presidency from 1981 to 1989.
From June 9 to 11, 1982 , President Reagan was a guest in Bonn and West Berlin.
From May 1 to May 6, 1985, President Reagan was on the occasion of the World Economic Summit in Bonn and a subsequent state visit to the Federal Republic of Germany. He visited Bonn, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorial in the district of Celle, Bitburg and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse (Hambach Castle).
On June 11 and 12, 1987, President Reagan visited Berlin (West) and Bonn. In Berlin he gave the widely acclaimed speech Tear down this wall!
GHW Bush
The 41st President of the USA, George HW Bush , visited the Federal Republic of Germany three times during his four-year term from 1989 to 1993.
On May 30th and 31st, 1989, President Bush Bonn, Mainz, visited the Rhein-Main-Airbase in Frankfurt am Main and together with Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl went on a boat trip on the Rhine from Oberwesel to Koblenz.
On November 18, 1990, President Bush made an approximately six-hour stopover in the Federal Republic of Germany on the way to the CSCE conference in Paris. He visited the cathedral in Speyer and then Federal Chancellor Kohl in his private house in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim. After the reunification of the two German states on October 3, 1990, this was the first visit by a US president to reunified Germany. However, during this visit the American President did not enter the territory of the former GDR, so that in July 1994 President Clinton was the first US President to enter the territory of the former GDR in the reunified Berlin.
On the occasion of the world economic summit in Munich, President Bush was in the Federal Republic of Germany from July 6 to 8, 1992.
Clinton
The 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton , is one of a total of five visits during his eight years in office from 1993 to 2001, to the three presidents who had been most frequently a guest in the Federal Republic of Germany.
President Clinton's first visit took place from July 10th to July 12th, 1994 and took him to Bonn, Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim (private home of Chancellor Kohl), Ramstein and the reunified Berlin. In Berlin, President Clinton was the first US president to enter the territory of the former GDR. The 33rd President of the USA, Harry S. Truman, was the last President of the USA to date to occupy the territory of the Soviet zone of occupation and later on the occasion of his participation in the Potsdam Conference in Cecilienhof Palace from July 16 to August 2, 1945 Had entered the GDR.
On May 13-14, 1998, President Clinton visited Berlin, Potsdam, and Eisenach.
In 1999, President Clinton made two visits to the Federal Republic of Germany in short intervals. On May 5th and 6th, 1999 his visit took him to Spangdahlem (district Bitburg-Prüm), Ramstein, Frankfurt am Main (exclusively Rhein-Main-Airbase), Ingelheim and Bonn. The second visit in 1999 took place on the occasion of the World Economic Summit in Cologne from June 18 to 21, 1999 and was limited to the cities of Cologne and Bonn.
The fifth and final visit of President Clinton to the Federal Republic of Germany took place from June 1 to 3, 2000 and extended to the cities of Berlin and Aachen (award of the Charlemagne Prize to President Clinton).
GW Bush
The 43rd President of the USA, George W. Bush , visited the Federal Republic of Germany five times during his eight-year term from 2001 to 2009 - as often as his predecessor Clinton.
President Bush's first visit took place on May 22nd and 23rd, 2002 in the federal capital Berlin.
On February 23, 2005, President Bush visited the cities of Mainz and Wiesbaden.
On July 12 and 13, 2006, President Bush paid a visit to Chancellor Angela Merkel's constituency and stayed in Stralsund , Trinwillershagen (Northern Pomerania district) and the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm .
From June 5th to 8th, 2007, President Bush attended the World Economic Summit in Heiligendamm .
The last visit by President Bush took place on June 11, 2008 in the guest house of the Federal Government at Meseberg Castle near Berlin.
Obama
Barack Obama , the 44th President of the USA , visited the Federal Republic six times during his tenure, more often than any other US president before. In his first year as president, he made two visits to Germany.
On April 3rd and 4th, 2009 President Obama visited Baden-Baden and the Franco-German border crossing in Kehl on the occasion of the NATO summit, where he symbolically crossed the Franco-German border, which is formed by the Rhine, together with other heads of government of the NATO member states , crossed on foot on the Europabrücke .
The second visit on June 4 and 5, 2009 extended to Dresden , the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial near Weimar and the US military hospital Landstuhl .
On June 18 and 19, 2013, President Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle and their two daughters, visited Berlin for the first time in his term of office, where he gave a speech in front of the east side of the Brandenburg Gate. On the return flight from Berlin to Washington, DC, Air Force One made a stopover with President Obama at the US military airfield in Ramstein .
On June 7th and 8th, 2015, Obama was a guest in Krün as part of the G7 summit at Schloss Elmau .
Another visit took place on April 24th and 25th, 2016. He opened the Hannover Messe 2016 together with Chancellor Angela Merkel .
Obama's last visit to Germany as President took place in Berlin from November 16-18, 2016 as part of a “farewell tour through Europe” . This was also the first visit by a President of the United States of America to Germany at a time when his successor in the office of President "President-Elect" had already been determined. Meetings took place in the Hotel Adlon and in the Federal Chancellery . A meeting was held on November 18, 2016 with the Heads of State or Government of France, François Hollande , Italy, Matteo Renzi , the United Kingdom, Theresa May and Spain, Mariano Rajoy .
Trump
A few months after taking office, the 45th President of the USA, Donald Trump , took part in the G-20 summit in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg from July 6 to 8, 2017 . This was also the first visit of an incumbent President of the United States of America to the second largest German city.
Web links
- BStU , topic contribution: John F. Kennedy's state visit to West Berlin
Individual evidence
- ^ Germany - Travels of the President - Travels - Department History - Office of the Historian. Retrieved August 19, 2019 .
- ↑ US President John F. Kennedy visits Hesse, 25. – 26. June 1963. Contemporary history in Hessen. (As of February 18, 2013). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- ↑ Obama in Berlin: The US President's Program , Berliner Morgenpost , November 15, 2016