Which U.S. president famously said 'Ich bin ein Berliner' at the Berlin Wall in 1963?

U.S. president John F. Kennedy famously said “Ich bin ein Berliner” at the Berlin Wall in 1963. He delivered the line in German during a speech at West Berlin’s Rathaus Schöneberg on 26 June, less than two years after East Germany had erected the Wall.

Kennedy’s visit was intended to reassure West Berliners and demonstrate American support for them during the Cold War. Speaking before an audience of roughly 120,000 people, he described the Wall as evidence of communism’s failure and declared solidarity with the city’s residents. The phrase means “I am a Berliner,” conveying that Kennedy identified politically and emotionally with the people of West Berlin.

A persistent urban legend claims that Kennedy accidentally called himself a jelly doughnut. That story is misleading: in Berlin, a doughnut of that type was generally called a Pfannkuchen, not a Berliner, and the crowd did not laugh at his wording. The speech became one of the defining public statements of Kennedy’s presidency.