A Rare Recording of President John F. Kennedy's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" Speech

President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin. It is one of the best-known speeches of the Cold War, and among the most famous anti-communist speeches. Twenty-two months earlier, East Germany had erected the Berlin Wall to prevent mass emigration to West Berlin. The speech was aimed as much at the Soviet Union as it was at West Berliners. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's finest, delivered at the height of the Cold War and the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation.President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the climax of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to his presidency.