Der Spiegel has another update on Obama’s hopes for a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
Barack Obama wants to hold a speech at the Brandenburg Gate when he comes to Berlin later this month. The city’s mayor wants to grant him his wish, but the German chancellor has misgivings.
The warning from the Chancellery was clear: The Brandenburg Gate is the “most famous and history-rich location in Germany,” a Chancellery source said on Monday. In the past, it has only been used on very special occasions for addresses by politicians, and when, then only by elected American presidents. More clearly stated: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would be better off looking for another location in the German capital to hold a speech.
But Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit appeared unimpressed by the warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and said during a press conference on Tuesday that he would be pleased if Obama were to address the public at the Brandenburg Gate.
“We are not ruling anything out,” a spokesman for the Berlin city council told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “The Brandenburg Gate would certainly be a nice place.” The local government also pointed out that the decision over where Obama should make his appearance was in the hands of the city council of Berlin and not the chancellor’s office or the federal government.
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, an Obama adviser confirmed that the Brandenburg Gate would be the Democratic candidate’s top choice for the location of a speech on trans-Atlantic relations. (more…) It would be a “simply great” backdrop, the adviser said. After all, the source added, John F. Kennedy’s famous appearance outside the Schöneberg Town Hall in 1963 was still very much alive in people’s memories.
Some suspect Mayor Wowereit’s remarks may be self-serving. Jürgen Trittin, deputy floor leader of The Green Party in the German parliament, predicted that Obama would end up speaking at the Brandenburg Gate. “Do you think that Wowereit would miss the chance to appear alongside Barack Obama,” he asked an interviewer on the German news channel N24. “I believe Wowereit is thinking: ‘He should appear, I will come into the picture and everything will be great’.”
Here is the issue, Chancellor Merkel leads a very popular German government and she is a member of the conservative CDU party. Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit is a member of the very unpopular SDP party that is polling under 20%. The mayor wants to tap into Obama’s popularity to lift his own.