Reagan
Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate
Delivered June 12, 1987 in West Berlin, Germany
Thank You
very much. Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and
gentlemen: Twenty four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited
Berlin, speaking to the people of this city and the world at the
city hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each
his turn to Berlin. And today, I, myself, make my second visit
to your city.
We come to
Berlin, we American Presidents, because it is our duty to speak,
in this place, of freedom. But I must confess, we’re drawn
here by the other things as well: by the feeling of history in
this city, more than 500 years older than your own nation; by
the beauty of the Grunewald and the Teirgarten; most of all, by
your courage and determination. Perhaps the composer, Paul Linke,
understood something about American Presidents. You see, like
so many presidents before me, I come here today because wherever
I go, whatever I do: “Ich hab noch einen hoffer in Berlin”
[I still have a suitcase in Berlin.]
Our gathering
today is being broadcast throughout Western Europe and North America.
I understand that it is being seen and heard as well in the East.
To those listening in Eastern Europe, I extend my warmest greetings
and good will of the American people. To those listening in Eastern
Berlin, a special word: Although I cannot be with you, I address
my remarks to you just as surely as to those standing here before
me. For I join you, as I join you fellow countrymen in the West,
in the firm, this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur ein Berlin.
[There is only one Berlin.]
Behind me
stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part
of a vast system barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed
wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there
may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards
and checkpoints all the same- still a restriction on the right
to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and
women the will of totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin
where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your
city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted
a brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing
before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated
from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon
a scar….
We hear much
from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political
prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts
are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been
permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.
Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state?
Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the
West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it?
We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and
security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only
strengthen the cause of world peace.
There is
one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that
would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General
Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace , if you seek prosperity
for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization:
Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!…
In Europe,
only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community
of freedom. Yet, in this age of redoubled economic growth, of
information and innovation, the Soviet Union faces a choice: It
must make fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete. Today
thus represents a moment of hope. We in the West stand ready to
cooperate with the East to promote true openness, to break down
barriers that separate people, to create a safer, freer world.
And surely
there is no better place than Berlin, the meeting place of East
and West, to make a start. Free people of Berlin: Today, as in
the past, the United States stands for the strict observance and
full implementation of all parts of the Four Power Agreement of
1971. Let us use this occasion, the 750th anniversary of this
city, to usher in a new era, to seek a still fuller, richer life
for the Berlin of the future. Together, let us maintain and develop
the ties between the Federal Republic and the Western sectors
of Berlin, which is permitted by the 1971 agreement.
And I invite
Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work and bring the Eastern and Western parts
of the city closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all
Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with life in one of the
great cities of the world. To open Berlin still further to all
Europe, East and West, let us expand the vital air access to this
city, finding ways of making commercial air service to Berlin
more convenient, more comfortable, and more economical. We look
to the day when West Berlin can become one of the chief aviation
hubs in all of central Europe….
In these
four decades, as I have said, you Berliners have built a great
city. You’ve done so spite of threats- the Soviet attempts
to impose the East- mark, the blockade. Today the city thrives
in spite of the challenges implicit in the presence of this wall.
What keeps you here? Certainly there is a great deal to be said
about your fortitude, for your defiant courage. But I believe
there’s something deeper, something that involves Berlin’s
whole look and feel and the way of life- not mere sentiment. No
one could live long in Berlin without being completely disabused
of illusions. Something instead, that has seen the difficulties
of life in Berlin but chose to accept them, that continues to
build this good and proud city in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian
presence that refuses to release human energies or aspirations.
Something that speaks with a powerful voice of affirmation that
says yes to the future, yes to freedom. In a word, I would submit
that what keeps you in Berlin is love -- love both profound and
abiding.
Perhaps this
gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction
of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces
backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting
the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian
world even finds symbols of love and worship an affront. Years
ago, before East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they
erected a secular structure: the television tower of Alexander
Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working
to correct what they view is the tower’s one major flaw,
threatening the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals
of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere
-- that sphere that towers over all Berlin -- the light makes
the sign of a cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols
of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.
As I look
out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German
unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps
by a young Berliner, “ This wall will fall. Beliefs become
reality.” Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it
cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot
withstand freedom.
