A Golden Era of Diplomacy

I've been 'reading' quite a bit lately - both 'normal' books and audiobooks. While I'm still procrastinating on my New Year's resolutions, I will read much more in German this year, and I'm starting with some light reading and listening about Dr. Konrad Adenauer's years as the first Chancellor of (West) Germany.

With the audio CD, there are some pretty powerful audioclips.

I don't mean to get nostalgic for a part of American history that I did not experience; nor do I wish to pretend to be an expert of this very difficult part of Germany's history, but with the elections in the US approaching and the primaries underway, one gets a different perspective on the state of politics and politicians when one listens to Kennedy's 1963 highly charged 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in Berlin or President Charles de Gaulle's address in Germany during a historic post war trip to Germany (reciprocating Adenauer's trip to France and extending the French-German Relationship).

Both are passionate addresses that are very seldom, if ever, replicated by today's politicians. Unfortunately, I couldn't find video of the de Gaulle address, but I did find a clip of Kennedy's historic speech in Berlin on YouTube.

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner'… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'

P.S. Thanks to the MacLeans: they've figured out how to embed their own YouTube vids on their blog, and it has encouraged me to figure it out myself. Thanks to their help, I should be able to post Gould YouTube posts soon.