"Ich bin ein Berliner," revisited
A commentary by Paul Kieffer
Pastor of United Church of God congregations in Germany
Three thousand people gathered in Berlin's Schöneberg town hall
square on June 26 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of U.S. President
John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. The
crowd was much smaller than the estimated nearly half million people
who in 1963 heard Kennedy say those four words—"I am a Berliner"—now
considered to be the sentence most widely recognized worldwide as being
German.
Kennedy’s historic June 26, 1963, speech declaring American solidarity
with the citizens of Berlin and Germany bitterly divided between the
communist east and the free west may well prove to have been the high-water
mark of postwar German-American relations. This seems especially so in
the aftermath of the bitter dispute between the United States and Germany
over President George Bush's decision to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein by force.
Interestingly, however, one of the same elements in the most recent
dispute over Iraq was already becoming a thorn in the German-American
relationship when John F. Kennedy visited Berlin 40 years ago. That thorn
was Germany’s desire for closer cooperation with its neighbor and
former traditional enemy, France. The Berlin Wall, the blight on Berlin
that Kennedy condemned during his Schöneberg speech, contributed
to the growth of that thorn in the first place.
Germany's chancellor Konrad Adenauer was disappointed by Kennedy's position
on the Berlin question prior to, during, and immediately after the erection
of the Berlin Wall. America's foreign policy at the time was perceived
as being committed to maintaining the postwar status quo of a divided
Germany. This was a totally unacceptable proposition for a democratic
nationalist like Adenauer.
In the months after August 1961, when the wall first went up, a remarkable
closing of the ranks transpired between Germany and France. It lead to
the triumphant state visit to Germany by French President Charles de
Gaulle in September 1962. Four months later, in January 1963, the historic
Franco-German friendship treaty was signed at Elysée palace near
Paris. The two former enemies embarked on a new course of cooperation
and mutual support as neighbors committed to peace and good bilateral
relations.
The treaty was criticized in Washington and caused tensions between
the "Atlanticists" and the "Gaullists" in Adenauer's
party and its sister party of then-chairman Franz Josef Strauss. That
domestic of dispute 40 years closely resembles similar charges and countercharges
made by German politicians in the months leading up to the latest Iraq
war.
In a private meeting with Adenauer during his June 1963 visit to Germany,
Kennedy mentioned his disappointment over France's decision to remove
its Atlantic naval fleet from NATO jurisdiction. In his response, Chancellor
Adenauer reportedly told the American President that "Europe, including
France, would be lost without the United States of America" (Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, June 23, 2003).
With the collapse of the Soviet system, the threat that was the basis
of Adenauer's comment to Kennedy is gone. The division of Germany is
over, and with it the division of Europe. In its desire to solve its
problem, Germany turned to France instead of going it alone, as would
have been the case in an earlier time, in view of Europe's history of
strong national states seeking domination.
The German-French relationship has continued to develop, leading in
the 1980s to the formation of a joint German-French military brigade,
stationed in southwestern Germany. More recently Germany, France, Belgium
and Luxembourg agreed to create a joint command structure for a combined
military force.
The Europe of today is a far cry from the Europe that John F. Kennedy
visited in the summer of 1963. The postwar division of Europe will be
symbolically ended next May when the European Union adds 10 new members
from formerly communist Eastern Europe. The recent tensions between Europe
and America were not the result of "too much America, but too little
Europe," according to Germany’s chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
With "more Europe" visible on the horizon, what does the future
hold for European-American relations? Our free booklets The
book of Revelation Unveiled and The United States
and Britain in Bible Prophecy are a must-read if you want a sneak
preview of the years to come. |
