August 6, 2008 • 8 mins
The Berlin Wall divided a country and a city, but it had a purpose. Learn more about its history and how JFK and Barack Obama fit into the picture in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
staff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined as usual by staff writer
Josh Clark, County Candice Hey. So, Candice, I was perusing
(00:22):
the my favorite news sites. I won't mention any of them,
but UM, I found that there was a little article
about a guy named Graham Pierce who retired from the
Dallas Police Force at the end of July. Have you
heard of this guy? Yeah? Well, UM, normally you wouldn't find,
you know, um, articles in national newspapers about retiring police
(00:43):
officers from Dallas. But the thing that made this guy's
retirement significant was he was the last uh Dallas Police
force officer. UM, Dallas police officer who was on the
force when JFK was assassinated in nineteen sixty three in Dallas. UM,
so of course it's going to make you know, headlines
here there. I think that it did make the fact
(01:05):
that it did make headlines, UH couldn't have been more
of a godsend for the Barack Obama campaign. UM. Just
four days earlier, Obama was in Berlin giving a speech
to like twenty thou Berliners, UM, about how we can't
allow walls to be erected among the people's of of uh,
(01:26):
you know, the West and the world, and we have
to fight things like a terrorism and global warming together
rather than separately. He was warning against isolationism and obviously
speaking in favor of globalization. UM. And the reason Obama
chose Berlin, and the reason his camp would be very
very happy that this Dallas police officer retired just a
(01:48):
couple of days later, was because Barack Obama loves to
be compared to JFK, another young American president exactly the
works wait exactly right with young kids, which is another
another comparison. Um. So Obama chose Berlin to give this
to give this speech because Kennedy had done it in
(02:10):
nineteen sixty three. UM. And he did it right next
to the Berlin Wall, which was this very literal dividing
line between East and West, communism and right and uh,
you know, freedom and tyranny depending on on your view
or your opinion or where you were born. Um. And
(02:31):
what Kennedy was saying when he gave that speech was
that you know, there's this wall here and and the
East Germans erected it but America would stand behind the
West Germans and the rest of the free world. And
if if they the Communists, came across this wall, they
would not only be messing with Germany, they would be
(02:53):
messing with America too. And in front of a hundred
thousand Berliners. Uh. He ended his speech very famously with
each being I am beer leaner, right, my Germans a
little rusty. But I've heard along the way in my
thirty two years that he actually said, not I am
a Berliner, but I am a jelly donut. Um is
(03:17):
that fact or fiction? Please put this to rest, because
I've heard it before, and I've heard both sides. What
what are you saying? It's sort of a sticky subject.
Now put on the jelly donut. But I think anytime
you're dissecting and interpreting a political figure speech, they're going
to be people who interpret it different ways. And to
be perfectly honest, I mean, you could say that that
(03:40):
is a fact. He did say he was a jelly donut,
but I'm going to lean toward decide that it's fiction.
And then he didn't actually say it's a jelly donut.
So this comment essentially it wasn't even something that Kennedy wrote.
You know, most presidents have speech writers, and his was
Ted Sorenson, who in his memoir actually said, you know,
I can't believe I put that in there. We were
(04:01):
trying to coach Kennedy on how to make that uvuler are.
It's sort of a hard sound to make. And as
we all know, Kennedy had a pretty uh well known
Boston accent, and so he actually the reason he said
is instead of ike was because he had trouble saying
ike uh. And he went with the Bavarian, which was
(04:22):
apparently a little easier for him because of that very
that Boston exciting Yeah. And and if you listen to
any of Kennedy's speeches or commentaries on the radio that
he made during his lifetime, he dropped his arms quite
a bit, and this was sort of a bad time
to drop your R. There you have it. So the
jelly donut in question, let's let's conquer this first. The
(04:44):
Berliner Essentially, this is a German pastry. It's sort of
like a jelly donut. It could also be called a
Berliner balin. And this isn't the only item of food
that is named after a city you've heard of Frankfurter's right. Certainly,
there you have it. It's not uncommon in Germany for
things to be named after towns. And Rice Erroney is
the San Francisco treat that too, indeed. Um, But essentially,
(05:08):
he wasn't saying I'm a jelly donut. He's saying I'm
one of you. And there's a couple of sticky issues
with that. Again, back to the sticky jelly. It's to
say it literally would be I'm a resident of Berlin,
but he was trying to say it more colloquially or
more figuratively, I am one of you. You know, we
(05:29):
are one of this body. We're in this together. And
when it came out, he actually said this a couple
of times in his speech. It wasn't just at the end,
he said at the beginning. In fact, when he came
up to the podium to make the speech and there
was such a thunderous applause and ovation that he couldn't
even begin until a couple of minutes after the crowd
of one thousand had calmed down, And so he said
(05:50):
it a couple of times, and essentially what he was
implying with that back in ancient civilization. The great civilization
to belong to would be the Romans, and today it's
the Berliner's. You know, to be one of you, to
stand for democracy in a world that's been essentially, you know,
surrounded by communist forces, it's a very brave thing and
(06:11):
I'm proud to be one of you. And the crowd
was very receptive of the sentiment. And perhaps there were
a couple of people who twittered, but I think they
appreciated that the US was there to help, but not
only the US also um France and Britain were part
of this too. But the people who may have laughed,
(06:31):
And the reason that documentation exists is that there were
some negative feelings towards JFK, and that has to do
with the erection of the wall itself. It was really
really spooky the night of August twelfth one, the lights
went out in East Berlin and when people woke up
there was a barbed wire fence separating East Berlin from
West Berlin. And before then, you know, there have been
(06:53):
guard station to try to keep people from defecting over
to the west side, and that was because it was
becoming an anonomical problem for the communist rule. People were leaving,
they couldn't support society. I can't imagine that there were
too many West Germans flooding into East Germany through Berlin.
Not so much. It would be sort of like I
don't even know, I can't even make an analogy. I'm
(07:14):
gonna stop right there. But when the wall there we go.
When the wall and up, it was just a barbed
wire fence, and then progressively it grew into this big
concrete bastion with checkpoints and guns and tubes on tops
of people couldn't crawl over, and guard station everywhere, people
couldn't tunnel under. But when it went up that night
of Office twelve, when the world woke up, suddenly there
(07:37):
was and JFK was taken aback as anyone else it wasn't.
Everyone just completely caught off guard by this. There was
no announcement of these plans. It just walls up. It
just happened. And a couple of countries, the afore mentioned France,
Britain and US, they devised the Berlin Air Left to
take supplies over to West Berlin and keep them, you know, sustained.
(07:58):
And so they were doing what they could, but some
people were still very angry about the situation and wondered
why this American superpower couldn't help save them. So the
people who laughed and misinterpreted the speech probably did it purposefully,
just as today. You know, when we listen to comments
that political figures make, we have ways of making fools
out of them in our own minds, for our own
(08:19):
personal reasons. Understood like a nuclear that would be one example,
very relevant and modern. Well, you've made me very hungry
while you cleared this up. I'm actually I kind of
feel like a fair claw. I'm not big on jelly donuts,
but I'm going to get some pastry of some sort
that sounds good. And in the intro and the rest
of you can read how the Berlin Wall Work for
more about this topic on stuff once dot com. We're
(08:42):
more on this and thousands of other topics because at
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast and how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
staff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined as usual by staff writer
Josh Clark, County Candice Hey. So, Candice, I was perusing
(00:22):
the my favorite news sites. I won't mention any of them,
but UM, I found that there was a little article
about a guy named Graham Pierce who retired from the
Dallas Police Force at the end of July. Have you
heard of this guy? Yeah? Well, UM, normally you wouldn't find,
you know, um, articles in national newspapers about retiring police
(00:43):
officers from Dallas. But the thing that made this guy's
retirement significant was he was the last uh Dallas Police
force officer. UM, Dallas police officer who was on the
force when JFK was assassinated in nineteen sixty three in Dallas. UM,
so of course it's going to make you know, headlines
here there. I think that it did make the fact
(01:05):
that it did make headlines, UH couldn't have been more
of a godsend for the Barack Obama campaign. UM. Just
four days earlier, Obama was in Berlin giving a speech
to like twenty thou Berliners, UM, about how we can't
allow walls to be erected among the people's of of uh,
(01:26):
you know, the West and the world, and we have
to fight things like a terrorism and global warming together
rather than separately. He was warning against isolationism and obviously
speaking in favor of globalization. UM. And the reason Obama
chose Berlin, and the reason his camp would be very
very happy that this Dallas police officer retired just a
(01:48):
couple of days later, was because Barack Obama loves to
be compared to JFK, another young American president exactly the
works wait exactly right with young kids, which is another
another comparison. Um. So Obama chose Berlin to give this
to give this speech because Kennedy had done it in
(02:10):
nineteen sixty three. UM. And he did it right next
to the Berlin Wall, which was this very literal dividing
line between East and West, communism and right and uh,
you know, freedom and tyranny depending on on your view
or your opinion or where you were born. Um. And
(02:31):
what Kennedy was saying when he gave that speech was
that you know, there's this wall here and and the
East Germans erected it but America would stand behind the
West Germans and the rest of the free world. And
if if they the Communists, came across this wall, they
would not only be messing with Germany, they would be
(02:53):
messing with America too. And in front of a hundred
thousand Berliners. Uh. He ended his speech very famously with
each being I am beer leaner, right, my Germans a
little rusty. But I've heard along the way in my
thirty two years that he actually said, not I am
a Berliner, but I am a jelly donut. Um is
(03:17):
that fact or fiction? Please put this to rest, because
I've heard it before, and I've heard both sides. What
what are you saying? It's sort of a sticky subject.
Now put on the jelly donut. But I think anytime
you're dissecting and interpreting a political figure speech, they're going
to be people who interpret it different ways. And to
be perfectly honest, I mean, you could say that that
(03:40):
is a fact. He did say he was a jelly donut,
but I'm going to lean toward decide that it's fiction.
And then he didn't actually say it's a jelly donut.
So this comment essentially it wasn't even something that Kennedy wrote.
You know, most presidents have speech writers, and his was
Ted Sorenson, who in his memoir actually said, you know,
I can't believe I put that in there. We were
(04:01):
trying to coach Kennedy on how to make that uvuler are.
It's sort of a hard sound to make. And as
we all know, Kennedy had a pretty uh well known
Boston accent, and so he actually the reason he said
is instead of ike was because he had trouble saying
ike uh. And he went with the Bavarian, which was
(04:22):
apparently a little easier for him because of that very
that Boston exciting Yeah. And and if you listen to
any of Kennedy's speeches or commentaries on the radio that
he made during his lifetime, he dropped his arms quite
a bit, and this was sort of a bad time
to drop your R. There you have it. So the
jelly donut in question, let's let's conquer this first. The
(04:44):
Berliner Essentially, this is a German pastry. It's sort of
like a jelly donut. It could also be called a
Berliner balin. And this isn't the only item of food
that is named after a city you've heard of Frankfurter's right. Certainly,
there you have it. It's not uncommon in Germany for
things to be named after towns. And Rice Erroney is
the San Francisco treat that too, indeed. Um, But essentially,
(05:08):
he wasn't saying I'm a jelly donut. He's saying I'm
one of you. And there's a couple of sticky issues
with that. Again, back to the sticky jelly. It's to
say it literally would be I'm a resident of Berlin,
but he was trying to say it more colloquially or
more figuratively, I am one of you. You know, we
(05:29):
are one of this body. We're in this together. And
when it came out, he actually said this a couple
of times in his speech. It wasn't just at the end,
he said at the beginning. In fact, when he came
up to the podium to make the speech and there
was such a thunderous applause and ovation that he couldn't
even begin until a couple of minutes after the crowd
of one thousand had calmed down, And so he said
(05:50):
it a couple of times, and essentially what he was
implying with that back in ancient civilization. The great civilization
to belong to would be the Romans, and today it's
the Berliner's. You know, to be one of you, to
stand for democracy in a world that's been essentially, you know,
surrounded by communist forces, it's a very brave thing and
(06:11):
I'm proud to be one of you. And the crowd
was very receptive of the sentiment. And perhaps there were
a couple of people who twittered, but I think they
appreciated that the US was there to help, but not
only the US also um France and Britain were part
of this too. But the people who may have laughed,
(06:31):
And the reason that documentation exists is that there were
some negative feelings towards JFK, and that has to do
with the erection of the wall itself. It was really
really spooky the night of August twelfth one, the lights
went out in East Berlin and when people woke up
there was a barbed wire fence separating East Berlin from
West Berlin. And before then, you know, there have been
(06:53):
guard station to try to keep people from defecting over
to the west side, and that was because it was
becoming an anonomical problem for the communist rule. People were leaving,
they couldn't support society. I can't imagine that there were
too many West Germans flooding into East Germany through Berlin.
Not so much. It would be sort of like I
don't even know, I can't even make an analogy. I'm
(07:14):
gonna stop right there. But when the wall there we go.
When the wall and up, it was just a barbed
wire fence, and then progressively it grew into this big
concrete bastion with checkpoints and guns and tubes on tops
of people couldn't crawl over, and guard station everywhere, people
couldn't tunnel under. But when it went up that night
of Office twelve, when the world woke up, suddenly there
(07:37):
was and JFK was taken aback as anyone else it wasn't.
Everyone just completely caught off guard by this. There was
no announcement of these plans. It just walls up. It
just happened. And a couple of countries, the afore mentioned France,
Britain and US, they devised the Berlin Air Left to
take supplies over to West Berlin and keep them, you know, sustained.
(07:58):
And so they were doing what they could, but some
people were still very angry about the situation and wondered
why this American superpower couldn't help save them. So the
people who laughed and misinterpreted the speech probably did it purposefully,
just as today. You know, when we listen to comments
that political figures make, we have ways of making fools
out of them in our own minds, for our own
(08:19):
personal reasons. Understood like a nuclear that would be one example,
very relevant and modern. Well, you've made me very hungry
while you cleared this up. I'm actually I kind of
feel like a fair claw. I'm not big on jelly donuts,
but I'm going to get some pastry of some sort
that sounds good. And in the intro and the rest
of you can read how the Berlin Wall Work for
more about this topic on stuff once dot com. We're
(08:42):
more on this and thousands of other topics because at
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast and how stuff works dot com.
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