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John F. Kennedy:
"Ich bin ein
Berliner" ("I am a 'Berliner'")

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I am proud to
come to
this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who
has symbolized
throughout the world the fighting spirit of West
Berlin. And I am proud And
I am proud to
visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor who for so
many years has
committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the
company of my fellow
American, General Clay, who
who
has been
in
this city during its
great
moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.

Two thousand years ago, 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."

(I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.)

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what
is
the great
issue between the free world and the Communist world.

Let
them come to Berlin.

There are some who say There
are some who say that communism is the wave of the
future.

Let
them come to Berlin.

And there are some who say, in
Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists.

Let
them come to Berlin.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
1

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And there are even a few who say that
it is true
that communism is an evil
system, but
it
permits us to make economic progress.

Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

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. I want to
say on behalf of
my countrymen who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far
distant from you, that
they take the greatest pride, that they have been able to
share with
you, even from a distance, the story of the last
18
years. I
know of no town, no
city, that
has
been besieged
for 18 years that still
lives with
the vitality and the force, and the hope, and
the determination of the city of West
Berlin.

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.

What
is What
is true of this city is true of Germany: Real, lasting peace in
Europe can never
be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and
that
is to make a free choice. In
18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans
has earned the right
to be free, including the right to
unite their families and their nation
in
lasting peace, with good will to all people.

You
live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So
let me ask you,
as I
close, to
lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to
the hopes of tomorrow, beyond
the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to
the advance of
freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to
the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and
ourselves to all mankind.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man
is enslaved, all are not free.
When all are free,
then
we look 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.
When that day finally
comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they
were in the front
lines for almost
two decades.

All 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."

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
2