President Vladimir Putin, The Former Official State Security

Again and again Kennedy contrasts the threats of communism all the while promoting the strength of West Berlin and the German people. Through these bold claims, the audience of West Berliners observe the truth in his words and the logic in his points.

As with several of the Presidents before him, Kennedy had to deal with communism and communists, which was all a part of the Cold War. President Kennedy gave a speech about the Berlin Wall and why it was constructed. It was not to keep people out, but to keep people in, to prevent the East Berliners from moving to the West. Kennedy was speaking to the citizens

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Germany was split between the Allies (France, Britain, and the United States) in the west and the Soviets in the East. Similarly, Berlin, although in East Germany, was split between the Allies and Soviets. In order to stop people from escaping the communist control of the “German Democratic Republic” (as the Soviets called East Germany), a wall was built around West Berlin seemingly overnight on August 13th, 1961. A secret police force known as the Staatssicherheitsdienst, (shortened to Stasi) kept information on every East German citizen through a vast network of spies, and also had the responsibility of discovering and ending plots to escape into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Anna Funder’s memoir, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall takes a unique look at stories of both the victims, and the Stasi themselves, trying to piece together what really happened in behind the Wall.

At the height of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the best speeches of his time. In Western Berlin, Kennedy spoke to around five hundred-thousand citizens in his speech Ich bin ein Berliner where he addressed the problems’ of the region, the issues of the Soviet Union and communism, and the Berlin Wa1l. He delivered his speech with one of the main subjects of his speech as the backdrop, the Berlin Wall, as Kennedy is trying to spark the Berliner’s to tear down the wall and the communist values with his use of ethos throughout his speech.

Throughout the GDR the Stasi were always omnipresent in the lives of many East Germans. Some East Germans felt

Again, the balance of these two hyper-influential entities is of the utmost importance to maintain. As the government grows more powerful, our society becomes more authoritarian. Under those circumstances, the politics of fear are given a chance to thrive, consequently creating dystopian societies. The world has experienced this

In his book titled The File, Timothy Garton Ash has written elegantly about his astute understandings of the struggles for political freedom in East and Central Europe. It was not surprising that Garton Ash had attracted the attention of the State Security Service (Stasi), which operated as the internal and foreign spying agency in East Germany till the time the Berlin Wall was demolished. Ash has thoroughly investigated and analyzed the available material that was secretly gathered by the Stasi. Such material comprised mainly of the information that was provided to the agency by its massive network of informers. Garton Ash has also interviewed many of the people that had provided information about him, as also their superiors in the different sections of the huge Stasi bureaucracy that were responsible for dealing with his case. He wanted to investigate and ascertain as to why the informers had behaved in such a manner and why they chose to go along such a path instead of making attempts to offer at least passive resistance (Ash, 1998).

President John F. Kennedy’s speech, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (1963),affirms that he is against the communist beliefs held within the West Berlin’s government and commends the resilience of the Berliners impacted. President Kennedy backs this claim up by claiming anyone who believes in communism should come to Berlin and witness what is taking place all while commending the people on their strength. JFK’s purpose was to not only to advocate for those stuck within the Berlin wall, but he uses the platform he has to emphasize the consequences a communist government can have on the nation. However, while his speech gave motivation to the population and disagrees with communist beliefs, his speech did not aid the Berliners.

“Ich bin ein Berliner,” written and forcefully enunciated by John Fitzgerald Kennedy to the West Berliners on June 26th, 1963, declared the United States’ solidarity with the people of West Berlin, that they would always have support, that they would always have the freedom to govern themselves even in the face of seemingly-overwhelming pressure from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. JFK got his message across to the West Berliners by way of ethos, pathos, logos, and clever use of diction.

During totalitarian leadership, many control tactics are used to maintain power. Whether it is censorship, revised history, terror, or propaganda, these tactics ensure that the dictator remains in power. I believe the three most important tactics are propaganda, censorship, and terror. The most effective is terror, because fear can make people completely change who they are as people to stay alive. If you can control what people are afraid of, you can control almost every aspect of their lives.

“Let them come to Berlin” is a powerful statement John F. Kennedy repeats multiple times to deliver a powerful messaged during his speech in West Berlin, Germany in June 1963. This speech later dubbed “I am a Berliner” was originally called “Speech from the Rathaus Schoeberg” but since it was remembered mainly for Former Presidents JFK opening and closing phrases, as long as the short speech in between them. I chose to preview this speech because at the turning of WWII Germany was divided in half between a Soviet fueled communist East and Democratic West Berlin. East and West Germany was spit by a wall that was erected. This speech had a last impact on Germany for many years, and Kennedy had a last impression and obtained trust from West Germans as well.

The desire of authoritarian regimes to co-opt civil society and social organizations is facilitated by a range of controls aimed at stifling the

Before the creation of the Berlin Wall, West Berlin presented an escape route for thousands of East Germans, which worsened conditions in the East and put pressure on the West. When East Germany lost civilians, its economy and social institutions weakened without skilled workers, causing more civilians to flee in a vicious cycle. The West was also unprepared for the influx of immigrants, due to the Western Leaders’ mistaken beliefs that reunification was imminent and economic fragility. East Germans who feared further Sovietization and coveted the higher wages and civil rights of the West fled West in droves; between 1941 and 1961 alone nearly 3.7 million people fled West. The creation of the Berlin Wall almost completely stopped migration, giving both nations the time they needed to develop. The Government of East Germany, the East German Democratic Republic or ‘GDR’, provided its citizens with housing, free transport, and excellent public education. However, for many East Germans these benefits were overshadowed by the methods by which the GDR maintained control and the lack of economic development. The GDR used an extensive secret police network called the ‘Stasi’ to suppress discontent. The Stasi surveyed citizens’ every move in order to suppress rebellious sentiments (Cameron). The Soviets had also weakened the German economy by selling German equipment and created a centralized economy completely controlled by the government (Rosenburg). On the other hand, West

On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country’s borders. East and West Berliners flocked to the wall, drinking beer and champagne and chanting “Tor auf!” (“Open the gate!”). At midnight, they flooded through the checkpoints.

President Kennedy’s support of West Germany became public after the Vienna summit of President Kennedy’s meeting with the Russian politician Nikita Khrushchev who at the time served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After the Bay of Pigs Khrushchev thought President Kennedy was young, naïve and inexperienced and thought he would be easily manipulated, Khrushchev threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany which would have given the Soviet Union control over Berlin’s access and the position of the NATO (Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation) forces in the city indefensible (Cross, p.130 1992)