The view of Obama?s Berlin visit from the street

Editor's note: Marc Young is a Berlin-based freelance journalist covering President Obama's visit for Yahoo! News.

Ever since John F. Kennedy made his legendary ?Ich bin ein Berliner? address almost 50 years ago to the day, Berlin has been a place where U.S. presidents come when they have something important to say.

In 1963, JFK set down a marker that America would not yield West Berlin to the Soviets just two years after the Wall had been built. And Ronald Reagan made one of his most memorable speeches in the still-divided city in 1987, demanding Mikhail Gorbachev tear down that very same Cold War barrier.

Keenly aware of the gravitas a Berlin visit can lend, Barack Obama made a passionate plea for a better world as a presidential candidate in 2008 to a huge crowd of 200,000.

Now returning as the leader of the free world, President Obama is giving an eagerly awaited foreign policy address in front of Berlin?s symbolic Brandenburg Gate. But with the entire center of the German capital on lockdown for the duration of his whirlwind 25-hour-and-5-minute visit, Obama will have little opportunity to mingle with Berlin?s denizens.

Yahoo News correspondent Marc Young hit the city?s few remaining unblocked streets to find out what people thought of all the presidential pomp and ask which U.S. president they considered to be the best Berliner.

10 a.m. on Unter den Linden boulevard

Bernd Schneider

The 63-year-old civil engineer for Germany?s railway took the day off to travel from Leipzig, an hour south of Berlin by train. But on the city?s grand Unter den Linden boulevard, there was no getting any closer to the Brandenburg Gate just visible in the distance. After growing up in communist East Germany, Schneider fled to the West in 1986, just three years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

?I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I asked the police if they were getting the day off, since it?s so sunny and nice, but they really didn?t think it was that funny.

?Obama is okay. I?m not really bothered by the [National Security Agency] snooping, I grew up in East Germany and you just can?t compare it with the Stasi [or the Ministry for State Security, the former secret police of East Germany]. I guess if I send pictures of my vacation and say, ?The weather was the bomb,? I?m going to be scanned. But I don?t mind if it helps stop terrorism. However, I?m pretty un-German about stuff like that.?

Presidential pick: JFK

10:45 a.m. near the Ritz Carlton Hotel at Potsdamer Platz

Once a derelict wasteland near the Berlin Wall, Potsdamer Platz is now home to shiny glass towers and the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where Obama and his family spent the night in Berlin. Rumor has it that the president picked it because of its nice gym. Manfred Fiifi, a 58-year-old Berlin resident who works as a security official for an embassy, stopped by after a doctor?s appointment.

?It?s a huge operation today, but these types of visits are normal for Berliners. I?m here because of my profession; it?s interesting to see how the police are handling all this.?

(At this point, the police stop a car to let a dog sniff for explosives. One burly officer demands we step further away with the friend phrase: ?When the dog is dangling from your bones??)

?I don?t have anything against Obama, he?s doing the best he can. I?m not disappointed in him, but I didn?t really expect that much from him either. Of course, JFK was the first U.S. president to come to Berlin, then Reagan and Obama. So I?d say Kennedy really set the standard.?

Presidential pick: JFK

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/view-obama-berlin-visit-street-134111608.html

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