A longtime friend and fellow Park Sloper was in Berlin yesterday and went with her husband and two daughters to hear Obama speak. Here is what she had to say about this historic event in that most historic city.
All four of us rode our bikes to see Obama speak at the Siegesaule—the Prussian victory monument that was deemed such an inappropriate place to speak. He tried to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, but the Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, and others, decided it was inappropriate to have a candidate speak in a place where only elected officials have gone before.
The Victory monument faces the Brandenberg Gate—between the two structures, there is a street called the Strasse17Juni named to commemorate the uprising of the East Berliners on 17 June 1953. This street lines the side of the Tiergarten, a large tree-filled park, nearly a forest, in the middle of Berlin. The Central Park of this city. (or should I say, the Prospect Park of Berlin). People came teeming through the park to reach this wide boulevard, one of the widest streets in all Berlin (a city which claims the widest boulevards in Europe) and by the time we got there, you could no longer squeeze into the part that was in front of the Siegesaule. It was full by 4pm—the speech was at 7pm. No bikes were allowed on the streets, so we locked ours to a tree—along with thousands of other bikes—and walked through the tree-filled park until we were nearly at the Gate. We forced our way onto this end of the Strasse 17 Juni and realized that we wouldn’t even be able to see one of the two enormous screens that were set up to give a view of the Man.
But we were glad to be there—more fun to hear his voice ringing out over Berlin, than to see his face in the Close-up of a newscast.
Obama was asked to speak from the side of the monument that faces the Brandenberg Gate—therefore, when the cameras focused on him, the gate would NOT be in the background. Therefore, Germany could not be said to be using their famous backdrop to support a presidential candidate—especially one running against the party of the president in office.
Good luck. A poll yesterday showed that nearly 70% of Germans support Obama.
That much more pathetic whenMcCain said he’d like to speak in Berlin too, but only AFTER he’s president. Hah!
And who needs the Brandenberg Gate anyway? This power of the location was everywhere evident without the cliched backdrop. It was a real Berlin location—steeped not only in history—but in so many histories—Prussian, World War II, the Cold War—triumph and defeat—good and evil. This was not lost on our well-educated Obama of course, and his speech as you heard, often referred to the spirit of Berlin, the quest for Freedom, the American pilots who dropped food during the Berlin blockade—he braided this history artfully into the present—leading up to the need for partnership. The great partnership of the Luftbrucke—the need for partnership between Europe and America today.
Of course, it’s all more complicated than that. Of course, after WWII Germans were our despised enemies until the Communists took their place. But once they accepted defeat and became our allies in the cold war, the evil Germans were transformed into civilian victims.
But Obama knows all this, I’m sure—and just as he smoothed over the last 60-70 years, so he also moderated his criticism of America. But Berliners are not only full of spirit, they’re also a practical people—why else would they ride their bikes everywhere—and they know he has to moderate the rhetoric when speaking in a foreign land. He mentioned ending the war—but he didn’t say the war was a mistake—he said America’s not perfect, but that we always strive to be better. And so on.
SO: between the Prussian War Memorial and the Gate-where this street named for anti-Communist protest lies—We stood along with roughly 200,000 people—mostly Germans, mostly young, but we also heard languages from all over the world—including English. It was said that many Americans living in other parts of Germany came to Berlin to hear him. It was also said that many people from the eastern European countries came to Berlin to hear him. It’s notable that Obama spoke in English and that most Germans could understand him. That’s a feature of this country—how well they all speak English.
Mostly young people, but also many old ones, many children and babies. They were selling beer and bratwurst and people came to juggle and sing and enjoy. I felt like I should be carrying a sign that said “Make Love Not War.” But when Obama spoke, everyone listened. They clapped often and not only when he brought up the spirit of Berliners. The German radio later reported that his speech was a great success.
I was especially happy to be there with my daughters and wondered if they’d remember this day the way I remember the peace marches my mother took me to when I was a kid. Of course, it all depends on what happens. If Obama wins and fulfills even half the promise we expect—if he wins and ends this dark time in American politics, if he wins and does something, anything about the environment or the war, if one can come to Berlin, as we often do, and stop being embarrassed to be living in a country run by buffoons, if, in fact, they’ll be able to look back and say that they were in Berlin at the Siegesaule and that they had a good feeling, some kind of sense that things might, finally, change for the better.
We walked back through the Tiergarten with hundreds of others, through this typically German park which is part wild forest and part manicured gardens and retrieved our bikes, and rode home.
Our phone rang off the hook from Berlin friends who’d either been there too, or watched him on television. It’s a town obsessed with politics—even and especially American politics. Everyone wanted to know what we thought and we spent the night going over his speech, the reactions (people here were watching CNN and German news at the same time). I liked his speech, and so did most of our friends. It’s a bit too much like a preacher, especially for the low-key Germans, but they accepted that too. They admire and even envy the emotion that this American candidate can project. There’s a certain kind of theater that no German politician could ever create, and Obama creates that. I know he always manages to move me. And it was doubly moving to see it along with so many other people, to confirm that his voice has stretched across the ocean and moved so many Europeans. This guy certainly has something and that I think that something is desperately needed in the White House.
