Barack Obama speaks: I come to Berlin as
so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not
as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of
the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

I know
that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this
great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was
born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats
in Kenya. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic
servant to the British.

At the height of the Cold War, my father
decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world,
that his yearning — his dream — required the freedom and opportunity
promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to
universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his
prayer for a better life.

That is why I’m here. And you are here
because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the
dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here
tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together
to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.

Ours
is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the
day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.

On
that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this
city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept
across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France
took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.

This
is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the
Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off
food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to
extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.

The size of our
forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat
would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war
had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in
the way was Berlin.

And that’s when the airlift began — when
the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope
to the people of this city.

The odds were stacked against
success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many
planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed
supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families
who had no comfort from the cold.

But in the darkest hours, the
people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin
refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of
Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor
implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one
possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this
battle is won. The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty,
and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your
duty. People of the world, look at Berlin!”

People of the world — look at Berlin!

Look
at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and
trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the
field of battle.

Look at Berlin, where the determination of a
people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German
miracle; where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest
alliance ever formed to defend our common security.

Look at
Berlin, where the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones
and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate insist that we never forget our
common humanity.

People of the world — look at Berlin, where a
wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that
there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one. (07/24/08)
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