It was one of the most famous sentences spoken during the Cold War.
“Ich bin ein Berliner.” (“I am a Berliner.”)
John F. Kennedy spoke those words on June 26, 1963, to an enormous crowd in a Berlin divided by the Cold War.
Here is a link to the New York Times account of the speech: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0626.html#article
With the end of World War II in 1945, the city of Berlin was divided between Communist east and democratic west. For years it served as a tense symbol of the Cold War. In 1948, the western allies began a massive airlift of food into West Berlin after the Soviet Union cut off road and rail access into the western sector of the city. When Kennedy arrived in 1963, he was hailed as a hero in the city.
Allied bombing raids and heavy fighting during World War II nearly wiped out Berlin, and some 152,000 civilians lost their lives during the Second World War. The victorious allies divided Germany and Berlin after the war. West Berlin was an enclave within Soviet-dominated communist East Germany, which began building the famed concrete and barbed wire Berlin Wall to divide east from west in August 1961. More than 170 people died trying to escape East Berlin after the wall was completed. Most were shot by East German border guards.
Following Germany’s reunification in 1990, Berlin was named capital of the reunited Germany, and in 1999, the German government returned to Berlin. More than 800-years-old the city was once the focus of Cold War divisions but successfully hosted the FIFA 2006 World Cup (soccer) Finals. Today it is One of Europe’s great cultural, political, and economic centers, and Germany’s largest city.
There has been a little controversy, or confusion, over Kennedy’s famous words since a 1988 report in the the New York Times suggested that Kennedy made a grammatical gaffe. A writer stated that a “berliner” is actually known to Germans as a breakfast pastry, similar to a jelly doughnut. The esteemed Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations even annotates the entry about this quote with that information. However, according to German press reports, Germans on that day had no confusion about what Kennedy said or meant.
This is a link to the Kennedy Library with more information on the trip and the speech: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03BerlinWall06261963.htm
This a video of Kennedy giving that memorable speech to a roaring crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH6nQhss4Yc
