BERLIN — When Barack Obama’s campaign finally selected the
Victory Column in Berlin as the site for his speech on global
cooperation, no doubt they considered its history and aura of
gravitas. Located in Berlin’s central Tiergarten Park, the Victory
Column was built in 1873 to commemorate German military victories
and stands just a short distance from the former site of the Berlin
Wall. It also stands right next to Berlin’s most popular gay naked
sunbathing spot.
Obama fans making their way to the security entrance stared and
laughed nervously as they passed by a field of 30-40 men soaking up
the sun in the buff. One girl tucked her copy of Obama’s memoir
Dreams From My Father into her bag and pulled out her
camera to snap a picture, giggling, “This is so going on my
Facebook.”
After that distraction, Obama fans faced a veritable obstacle
course to get to the security entrance. Campaign volunteers were
hunting through the crowd looking for Americans to register to
vote. Anyone who opened their mouth to utter something resembling
English was immediately pounced upon. One poor German girl,
mistakenly identified as American, lamented to the volunteers, “I
want to register, but I can’t.”
No large political gathering is complete without some of Lyndon
LaRouche’s followers. They were out in force distributing flyers
with the headline “P.U.M.A.: Party Unity My Ass,” accusing Nancy
Pelosi and Howard Dean of subverting Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign.
Obama fans waited in long lines as every single person underwent
a rigorous security check. All the contents of every bag had to be
emptied onto a table and then examined. Security guards clicked
every pen to make sure they were in fact pens. People had to take a
test photo with their cameras to show that their cameras were in
fact cameras. They were also required to take a test sip from their
water bottles to show that the contents were not poisonous.
Once they were through security, Obama fans faced an even longer
wait for the man himself to appear. Gates opened at 4 p.m. for a
speech that began at 7. They read German romance novels and rolled
cigarettes to pass the time. A stand dispensing Berliner Kindl beer
was doing brisk business.
Music was played loudly over the main speakers. Selections
included Estelle and Kanye West’s hit song “American Boy,” which
features lyrics very appropriate to Obama’s current world tour,
“Who the hottest in the world right now/Just touched down in London
town.” Later a live band called Raymond took the stage. Simon
Gierke, 27, a native of Hamburg, commented, “They are the worst
band ever to come out of Germany.”
The crowd, which eventually swelled to around 200,000, seethed
with anticipation as it waited for Obama. A young German named
Bastian Honig had driven six hours from his home in southern
Germany to attend the speech. He has been following Obama’s career
for four years and proudly wore the Obama ‘08 shirt that an
American friend had procured for him. “I cannot believe that Obama
chose Berlin to make his big speech,” Honig gushed.
Kimani, an American man with long dreadlocks, took a more
relaxed view. “Every politician talks about 50 percent truth and 50
percent bulls—t. Though with Obama I think it’s more like
60-40.”
BANNERS AND SIGNS were forbidden at the speech, but there was
certainly no lack of political statements. The World Wildlife Fund
handed out thousands of free t-shirts emblazoned with the words
“Yes You Can” at the top and a polar bear with human hands pointing
a finger outward and the words “I want YOU to stop climate change”
underneath.
American political memorabilia company Brown and Young was
selling commemorative buttons. Some were fairly traditional,
featuring Obama’s official logo. Others were a little more offbeat.
One depicted Obama in front of the German flag and the words
“Deutschland fuer Obama” and another depicted Obama in lederhosen
surrounded by beer steins and the word “Obamafest.”
Ulf Dagner, a Swede staying in Berlin for a psychology
conference, found the Obamafest button to be disrespectful yet
could not resist buying it. He put it on his messenger bag and
fixed a more traditional “Obama ‘08” button prominently on the
front of his shirt.
As it got closer to 7 p.m., the area around the stage became
densely crowded. The media covering the event did not have it much
better. They were packed like sardines into their high rise across
from the podium where Obama would speak. CNN star reporter
Christiane Amanpour managed to stick an arm out to wave to a
fan.
WHEN OBAMA finally took to the stage — a full 15 minutes behind
schedule — the crowd went wild. The 27-minute speech was
interrupted by applause 30 times. They applauded when he had the
audacity to declare that he did not speak to them “as a candidate
for president, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United
States, and a fellow citizen of the world.” They kept applauding
from beginning to end, though early on, when he was extensively
reviewing the history of the Berlin airlift, one German girl
whispered to her friend, “But I already know all this.”
When the speech ended, many Obama fans tried to make their way
to the front to shake the candidate’s hand. Most of the crowd,
however, started to head home. John McCain has recently been
criticizing Obama for changing positions on an exit strategy for
Iraq. Obama’s campaign certainly failed to arrange a good exit
strategy for the crowd at the rally. A large wire fence kept the
surging masses locked in without explanation for about 15 minutes.
Some enterprising teenagers had started climbing over the portable
toilets to escape.
Germans by and large were very happy with the speech. They felt
Obama hit all the right notes. Some were a little disappointed that
he did not emulate Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” and try
to speak a few German phrases.
Over 700 German police wearing green berets with edelweiss
emblems were deployed for the visit. They were only required to
spring into action once during the speech. A group of six drunken,
shirtless young men had gotten a little rowdy and needed to be frog
marched out.
The total cost of Obama’s stop in Berlin came to about half a
million Euros ($786,000), half of which was being picked up by the
German taxpayer. “No problem,” says Simon Gierke. “Even if it cost
millions. Still no problem. This is not about Obama or McCain. This
is about living together as humans.”
Jens Wieland, another German taxpayer, is equally unbothered by
the cost. He says, “More money is spent on much more stupid things.
Here at least you get something for it.”
