I am a doughnut.

On this day in 1963 John F. Kennedy made his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. I give you the text below. When he was speaking to the assembled German crowd of 120,000 a translator was converting his English into German for the audience. When he said “Ich bin ein Berliner” the translator continued translating. As you can see in the text below Kennedy then made a quip thanking his interpreter for translating his German. This got a laugh from the crowd.

From that laugh arose a joke that Kennedy had made an incorrect statement. Instead of saying “Ich bin Berliner” (I am a person of Berlin) he said “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berlin doughnut). The joke played well and spawned a lot of pictures of talking doughnuts.

In fact it is correct to say either version of the German and have it mean you are a person from Berlin. Also the people of Berlin don’t call a Jam Doughnut a Berliner (Germans outside of Berlin do), they call it a pancake.

The speech has gone down as one of Kennedy’s finest and a broadside fired against Communism. It was the height of the Cold War and the Berlin Wall was still fresh and new. I was not born until October of 1963, so I didn’t see the wall go up, but I got to see it come down.

When my American work colleagues mangle my simple Irish name I usually tell them Ich bin ein Berliner, because I tell them Donal sounds like “Donut”, not like “The Mall”.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Ich bin ein Berliner Speech, June 26, 1963

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 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 has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.

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 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. 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 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 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 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”.

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Obelisk #21

In the courtyard of the archeological museum of Poznan you will find the only Egyptian obelisk in Poland. It actually “belongs” to the Berlin Museum in as much as any of these objects can be said to belong to anyone. It is on loan to Poznan.

The stele is a grey granite from the Aswan quarries a stone called granodiorite. It is inscribed with the names of three pharaohs of the 19th dynasty: Ramses II, Merneptah, Seti II but there is a theory that it predates the 19th, possibly erected by Amenhotep the Great, and was later inscribed by these rulers. It is one of a pair, the second of which is in Cairo. It was originally located at Tell Athrib (Athribis to the Greeks) in the delta region of Egypt. It was placed in a temple of Khenti-Kheti the crocodile God of Athribis. Over time Khenti-Kheti became confused with Sobek and later in the New Kingdom with Horus.

At some stage the obelisk was removed from Athribis and taken to Cairo where it was used as the threshold to a house. This is a rather interesting role for an obelisk which was orginally a kind of threshold between earth and sky, representing the pallus of the earth god Geb fertilizing the sky god Nut. A threshold demarcates the inner private space of the home from the outer public space. The passage of thousands of steps has worn smooth the stone on the side that lay face up. It was recognized as an obelisk in the 19th century and in 1895 Carl Reinhardt, a German Consul in Cairo secured it for his nation. It was loaned to Poznan in 2002. The pyramidion was damaged long ago and the golden tip now on the stone is a modern fabrication.

“Taken from among ruins, dust and sands,
an obelisk wandered to the foreign lands,
on exile like a banit, used to stand alone,
offering no shadow with his heart of stone,
standing silent, its spirit in the land of ghosts…”
(J. Słowacki, Letter to Aleksander H.)

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Happy Langer Hans

Happy Birthday to Paul Langerhans, born in Berlin on this day in 1847 and lucky for him, and for science, that he was not born in Cork.

He gave his name to the Islets of Langerhans, Langerhans cells, Langerhans granules, the Layer of Langerhans and the protein Langerin. His key discovery was insulin producing cells which led to greater understanding of the role of insulin in the body and modern approaches to the treatment of diabetes.

Sadly Langerhans contracted tuberculosis at a young age and had to give up his research as he struggled for a cure in the Mediterranean, then in the Swiss Alps and finally in Funchal, where he achieved a partial cure. He died at the rather young age of 40 and is buried on Madeira, which is therefore another islet of Langerhans.

Island within Island; by Henry Dumas

our voices waved upwards into a tide
that wrapped itself around the island
like some great blue snake and i
with visions unraveled my body
from the great octopus i had slain
with our voices

across the island i carried my
soul as one would carry a tiny
baby found starving and dying
back leaving skin shedding
and merging with the tentacles
of the rotting world
my voice walks like a skeleton

i have reached the edge of lagoon
protected in the curve of the tidal
rhythms are beating down my bones
the island has appeared
floating perhaps beckoning me
to its water free of beasts
our voices are saying to our voices

i am the center and the sense
i am the sun
out of me comes everything

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Putin’s Ambition

I just finished re-watching “The World At War” for about the fifth time, and this time my experience of it was very different. In previous times I was interested in the battles and the victories, and less interested in the politics and the diplomacy.

This time, in the context of what Putin is doing, invading Ukraine, it is the diplomatic elements that stand out. When the Japanese peace party suggested making overtures to surrender they elected to funnel them though Russia, who had not officially declared war on Japan.

For months the Russian foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, ducked and dodged the Japanese ambassador to avoid these overtures. Stalin had other plans. As the Americans were dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima the Russians declared war on Japan and flooded across the border into Manchuria. Japan was defeated, bombed relentlessly by the Americans. The Atomic bombs forced the hand of the Emperor and brought about the surrender. But they were also a message to the Russians.

The US Secretary of War, Henry (Colonel) Stimson was a forward thinker who gave much consideration to the role of atomic power in securing a lasting post-war peace. He advised President Truman that the retention of the technology by the USA would represent an existential threat to Stalin. He was at times a Cassandra, a voice in the wilderness, advising the US top brass to share their greatest military advantage with the Russians.

At the Yalta conference in February 1945 the allies agreed the partition of Germany in advance of the final victory. The allies had come on the back of a major setback in the Battle of the Bulge, whereas the Russians had just completed their Vistula-Oder offensive where they chewed through 530 km of German territory in a single month. Understandably the allies probably gave up much more than they should have. When the lines did eventually meet the allies had picked up their pace considerably and the Americans took Leipzig.

In the heady days following the contact between the allies the Russians and the Allies posed for snapshots and handshakes. They exchanged flags and insignia, watches and medals. At a senior function one of the American delegation was congratulating Marshal Chuikov and said how wonderful it was after all the trials and tribulations to be in Berlin. The Russian’s response was “Czar Alexander reached Paris“.

Stalin’s understanding of what was negotiated at Yalta was considerably different to how the Americans and British interpreted it. Stalin got his way. He secured control of Eastern Europe from Germany to the Balkans, creating a buffer between the USSR and the West, the “Iron Curtain”. The Polish people who fought all through the war, were betrayed by the Allies to secure the post-war peace.

Stalin also wanted a chunk of Japan, but Truman and McArthur would have none of that. The Americans made Japan their own.

Why is all of this important today? Just as Chuikov wanted to reach Paris Putin wants to restore his buffers. He will defeat Ukraine and install a puppet Government exactly like the one in Belarus. Then he will move to the next non-EU and non-NATO target. Moldova.

Once these are secured he will begin his false flag operations in the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. One by one he will gobble them up and restore his connection to Kaliningrad. Now you are saying “He will not dare attack both the EU and NATO, he is not so foolish.”

He will. Just as Hitler moved from Saar, to Rhineland, to Austria, to Sudetenland, to Czechoslovakia step by step to Poland. Poland is the target for Putin too. Then Romania, Bulgaria, the Balkans, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia. It’s probably better all round to stop him now, in Ukraine.

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