"Berlin marks 50th anniversary of JFK speech" AP, June 27, 2013
BERLIN — Berlin celebrated the 50th anniversary Wednesday of President John F. Kennedy’s famed ‘‘Ich bin ein Berliner’’ speech — a pledge of support to the divided city on the Cold War’s front line that still resonates in a much-changed world.
Kennedy made his speech during a several-hour trip to West Berlin on June 26, 1963, nearly two years after communist East Germany cut the city in half by building the Berlin Wall and amid concern that America might abandon the Cold War outpost....
Kennedy’s declaration has become a symbol of strong German-US ties, and President Obama evoked it when he spoke last week at the city’s Brandenburg Gate, which in 1963 stood on the communist side of the wall.
I saw that.
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Related: Wartime bomb defused near Berlin’s main station
It was a Soviet bomb.
"Part of Berlin Wall removed in pre-dawn operation" by Kirsten Grieshaber and Robert H. Reid | Associated Press, March 28, 2013
BERLIN — For nearly 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the hated symbol of the division of Europe, a gray, concrete mass that snaked through neighborhoods, separating families and friends. On Wednesday, it took hundreds of police to guarantee the safe removal of 15 feet of what’s left of the wall.
Construction crews, protected by about 250 police, hauled down part of the three-quarter of a mile strip of the wall before dawn to provide access to a planned luxury apartment complex overlooking the Spree River.
Even though most of the strip remains intact, the move angered many Berliners, who believe that developers are sacrificing history for profit.
The site, known as the East Side Gallery, has become a major tourist attraction, painted by 120 artists with colorful scenes along the gray concrete tiles.
It is the longest remaining portion of the 96-mile wall that surrounded Western-occupied West Berlin from 1961 until the peaceful revolution against the communist East German government in 1989. At least 136 people were killed trying to escape over the wall.
The flap over the future of the East Side Gallery flared last month with the announcement that developers wanted to tear away part of the wall. The announcement triggered a series of protests, including one attended by actor David Hasselhoff.
Hasselhoff is remembered here fondly for his song ‘‘Looking for Freedom’’ that became the unofficial anthem of the 1989 revolution.
‘‘It’s like tearing down an Indian burial ground,’’ Hasselhoff said during the March 17 protest. ‘‘It’s a no-brainer.’’
Related: Cumberland Farms and Hasselhoff, together again
After the protests, demolition work was suspended while local politicians and the investors looked for alternative access to the apartment site, located in the heart of the German capital.
When no other access route could be found, the main investor, Maik Uwe Hinkel, decided to resume the project. Work began at 5 a.m. when few people were out on the streets.
In an e-mailed statement, Hinkel said the removal of parts of the wall was a temporary move to enable trucks to access the building site. He said that after four weeks of fruitless deliberations with city officials and owners of adjacent property, he was no longer willing to wait.
As word of the demolition spread, small crowds of Berliners turned out to watch although no one sought to block the effort.
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