John F. Kennedy: Excerpt from Remarks in Rudolph Wild Platz, Berlin (Ich bin ein Berliner speech)
Excerpt from "Remarks in the Rudolph Wild Platz, Berlin, June 26, 1963"
Originally published in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963
"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 [I am a Berliner].'"
On August 12, 1961, twenty-five hundred East Germans crossed over into West Berlin to work and live under freedom and democracy. Although through the 1950s approximately three million East Germans had crossed into West Berlin with most proceeding to West Germany, that number for one day was unusually high. After U.S. president John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) gave a speech regarding Berlin on July 25 and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) responded on August 4 (see first and second excerpts in this...
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