SECRETARY KERRY: Toria, thank you very much.
Welcome, everybody, to the Ben Franklin Room
of the State Department. Friends from Germany
and intrepid leader Fred Kempe, Bill Harrop,
and all the generous contributors to the Diplomacy
Center, as well as to our brilliant seventh
and eighth floors, we are deeply appreciative
for your generosity. And special guests, everybody
– it is really wonderful to see you here.
This afternoon, I want to joint Assistant
Secretary Nuland in welcoming our very distinguished
and special guest, President Joachim Gauck.
I also thank all of you for joining us here
today as we officially take into the Department
of State a very tangible – and if you’ve
seen it downstairs; I hope you had a chance
to, and that’s why we’re running a little
bit late. I apologize; we were down there
admiring the section of the wall. But it is
a very large piece of history, and such relics
of the past are obviously priceless. Speaking
for myself, I’d much rather view one than
be one.
(Laughter.)
My friends, in receiving this unique – this
unique symbol and memorial of the wall itself,
the Berlin Wall, we at the same time pay tribute
to an indelible partnership between two great
countries. And inevitably, we think back to
an era when an event like this was literally
beyond belief.
We recognize now even more than we did in
1961 that the building of the Berlin Wall
was both an act of hostility as well as a
humiliating admission of defeat. From ancient
Rome to medieval China, we know of civilizations
erecting barriers to keep adversaries out,
but never before had a government found it
so necessary to brick their citizens in.
Almost 26 years have now passed since the
wall was brought down by courageous people
on both sides. Today, pieces of the barrier
can be found in every corner of the globe,
from Australia and Argentina to Canada and
South Korea. This Department is blessed to
have a place, the U.S. Diplomacy Center, where
we are able to receive and display historic
gifts. And I want to join Toria in really
thanking personally and with deepest appreciation
all those of you, whether individuals or corporate
sponsors, who are supporting the center now
with your contributions. And I’m not saying
that to encourage you to give more – though,
obviously, that is always welcome. But I just
want to say thank you profoundly, without
asking for the more.
It’s only because of you that we are able
to have events like this, and to receive on
behalf of the department but also on behalf
of our country a segment of the wall personally
signed, as Toria just said to you, by those
individuals who played key diplomatic roles
in helping to bring it to rubble. These bold
leaders include United States President George
H. W. Bush, Soviet Premier Gorbachev, German
Chancellors Kohl and Merkel, Polish President
Walesa, Lech Walesa, and former U.S. National
Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.
Now, we’re particularly pleased that Brent
was able to join us here today. And I asked
him when he was looking at the wall if it
brought back a few shivers, and he said, “Yes,
absolutely.”
I know some of you have heard – and maybe
you’ve heard it too often – about the
time that I spent in Berlin, a short time
as a young kid. And my father was in the Foreign
Service there. He was serving as the legal
advisor to the high commissioner of Germany,
James Conant. And I used to – I was about
12 years old, 13 years old, and I loved riding
my bike. I did not fall and break my leg back
then. (Laughter.) And I rode it all along
the lakes, around the lakes, up and down the
Kurfurstendamm. I remember riding past the
Reichstag all burned out, riding back by the
Fuhrer’s bunker that had been blown up,
and the Brandenburg Gate, and all of these
great memories of that time.
And I was curious. And one day I exercised
the privilege of a diplomatic passport and
I rode through the checkpoint into East Berlin.
And though still a child, I really could tell
immediately – and I found it very foreboding
– the difference between the east and the
west. The east was drabber, darker; the clothes
were darker. There were fewer cars. There
was a grayness. And I felt this sense of something
that actually frightened me, and I turned
around pretty quickly and went back. I didn’t
linger long.
I had the choice of going back. A lot of people,
obviously, did not have that choice. And many
people lost their lives trying to exercise
it later on. Even as I was pedaling around
East Berlin that afternoon, families like
that of Joachim Gauck were living outside
the circle of freedom.
In fact, the future president’s father was
a prisoner in a Soviet gulag. That searing
experience helped to make of his son a true
democratic champion, a gutsy activist, and
a leader referred to in the files of the East
German secret police as “an incorrigible
anti-communist.” The highest praise indeed.
(In German/via interpreter) President, thank
you that you have come here. Your presence
here is not just – shows that will it not
only have a geopolitical game that was being
played; it was also a major tragedy at a time
where many people who loved peace and freedom,
and many menschen were – many people had
to live and were silenced. Nobody is going
to know better how many good and courageous
people died during the effort to fly across
the Berlin Wall.
Thank you for being here. Your presence brings
home to us the fact that the Cold War was
not some sort of a geopolitical game. It was
a terrible human tragedy in which millions
of freedom-loving people were persecuted,
imprisoned, and forcibly silenced for the
better part of a lifetime. No one will ever
know for certain exactly how many good and
brave people perished while trying to get
over or through the Berlin Wall – the actual
number.
But today, as we look back almost a quarter
of a century after German reunification, we
can take unbelievable pride in the relationship
between our two nations which had forged through
decades a healing and a building. To the United
States, Germany is a trusted ally, a partner,
and a friend. And to those of us here today,
it is a privilege and a pleasure to welcome
the revered president of our great ally Germany,
Joachim Gauck.
(Applause.)
