Remarks of President John F. Kennedy at the Rudolph Wilde Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963

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President John F. Kennedy
West Berlin
June 26, 1963

[This version is published in the Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1963. Both the text and the audio versions omit the words of the German language translator. The audio file was edited past the White Firm Signal Agency (WHSA) presently after the speech was recorded. The WHSA was charged with recording only the words of the President. The Kennedy Library has an audiotape of a network broadcast of the full speech, with the translator's words, and a journalist'southward commentary. Because of copyright restrictions, it is only bachelor for listening at the Library.]

I am proud to come to this city equally the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of Westward Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Commonwealth with your distinguished Chancellor who for and then many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come hither in the company of my swain American, General Clay, who has been in this metropolis during its great moments of crisis and will come again if always needed.

Two g 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 slap-up issue between the free world and the Communist earth. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And in that location are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that information technology is true that communism is an evil system, just it permits united states of america to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, merely we have never had to put a wall up to go along our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who alive many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you lot, that they have the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, fifty-fifty from a altitude, the story of the last eighteen years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for xviii years that however lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the urban center of Westward Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid sit-in of the failures of the Communist arrangement, for all the world to meet, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an crime non only against history merely 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 true of this metropolis is true of Germany--real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured every bit long as one German language out of iv is denied the simple right of complimentary 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 exist free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good volition to all people. You lot live in a dedicated island of freedom, only your life is part of the primary. So let me ask y'all as I close, to lift your optics beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, across the freedom only of this city of Berlin, or your country of Frg, to the accelerate of liberty 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 gratuitous. When all are complimentary, and then we can expect forward to that twenty-four hour period when this city will be joined as one and this country and this smashing Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful earth. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of Due west Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the forepart lines for almost two decades.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I accept pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."