BERLIN – President Obama spoke to the people of Berlin Thursday about the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Germany, and the common values between the two nations.
“While I am not the first American President to come to this gate, I am proud to stand on its Eastern side to pay tribute to the past,” President Obama said.
“Here, for thousands of years, the people of this land have journeyed from tribe to principality to nation-state; through Reformation and Enlightenment, renowned as a “land of poets and thinkers,” among them Immanuel Kant, who taught us that freedom is the “unoriginated birthright of man, and it belongs to him by force of his humanity.”
“We’re now surrounded by the symbols of a Germany reborn. A rebuilt Reichstag and its glistening glass dome. An American embassy back at its historic home on Pariser Platz. And this square itself, once a desolate no man’s land, is now open to all. So while I am not the first American President to come to this gate, I am proud to stand on its Eastern side to pay tribute to the past.”
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