Ich bin ein Berliner Speech: Main Idea
Ich bin ein Berliner Speech: Main Idea
Kennedy basically wanted everybody to look at Berlin. He was pointing to the wall and saying, see that big ugly wall? See all those families separated by that wall? See how much the wall is a problem?
Well, communism built that wall. So, if you hate the wall, then you hate communism.
Kennedy was using the Berlin Wall as evidence that communism was really, really bad. So just in case anyone listening was thinking that maybe they didn't hate communism—maybe they were starting to sympathize a little bit with communism—Kennedy was clearly asking them to stop. Kennedy's assertion is that one look at Berlin was enough to show how communism ruins everything.
Questions
- How does Kennedy flatter his audience in this speech?
- Why is Berlin the perfect location for Kennedy's takedown of communism?
- What does Kennedy predict about the future? Is he right?
Chew On This
President Kennedy's name-calling and finger-pointing could only worsen relations between nations and extend the situation in Berlin; a spoonful of sugar toward communism would have done more to help Berliners.
The Berlin Wall proves that communists are unwilling to work with the rest of the world; therefore, the world should stand united against communism.
Quotes
Quote #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." (3-4)
English, Latin, and German in just two sentences? Now Kennedy's just showing off. He's connecting the themes of speech with the phrase "I am a Roman citizen," which was used to demand respect back in the days of the Roman Empire.
Quote #2
There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. (8-9)
People don't say that about communism anymore, but this was the 1960s. It was the era of longhaired hippies living on communes where they shared everything from their vegetables to their spouses. President Kennedy's message to the hippies: what's happening in Berlin isn't peace, love, and understanding. It's a hot mess.
Quote #3
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. (15)
Sick burn on the commies. If communism's so great, then why do people keep risking their lives to climb over the wall and get to the democratic, capitalist West?
Quote #4
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. (18)
There were many places in the world where communism and capitalism struggled against each other, hot spots in the Cold War. But in Berlin you could literally see both systems side-by-side, separated only by a wall. Berlin was a living terrarium of economic policies where the people had no say in what was happening to them.
Quote #5
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. (23-24)
Dude, does Kennedy have ESP? It would take twenty years, but Berlin and all of Germany would be reunited just like he said—reunited as a capitalist democracy, leaving communism as a mistake of the past.