Being and Time in Berlin: Hallowed, Hip, Enigmatic Part 1

Berlin flatland operates like a two-dimensional worm hole that transports you through time and space.

In June of 1963 President John Kennedy addressed a massive crowd – roughly half a million – gathered outside West Berlin’s City Hall. JFK’s declarative: “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or, “I am a Berliner” was draped in the lyrical idealism only he could summon. So, the story goes – though opinions vary – the audience cackled in response because Kennedy made a linguistic gaffe; he unwittingly told Berliners that he was a jelly donut (ein Berliner). The blooper notwithstanding, the President’s expression of solidarity, that Americans were residents in spirit, unified with Germans in the fight against the Soviets fortified just a few kilometers East came across anyway. Meaning sometimes transcends language.

“Ich bin ein Berliner.”

JFK

It was a traumatic time for a world-historical-city. Berlin had just been divided and some scholars blamed America’s young, inexperienced, and likely underprepared President for allowing it to happen. In Berlin 1961 Fredrick Kempe castigates Kennedy for "inconsistency, indecision, and policy failure." In fact, while JFK was vacationing in Hyannisport East Berliners were leaping from apartments straddling the border into nets cast by West Berlin fireman as US observers watched in disbelief and inaction. In any case, Berlin split along the river Spree for the next three decades plus.

The halving was more than geographic and political, it also represented the harrowing tug of war inside the soul of Germany. WWII left psychological wounds buried deep in the recesses of the German mind and Berliners at the mercy of the high stakes great power brinkmanship pirouetting around them. It is from this point-of-view that we begin our trek through Berlin.