Chancellor Angela Merkel made it known to Obama's team that she did not approve of him campaigning at the Brandenburg Gate
Obama's choice of site for speech splits Germans
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The decision by Senator Barack Obama to speak at a landmark monument in Berlin this Thursday has opened up yet another controversy, with conservative and opposition politicians saying the site recalls Germany's Nazi past and Prussia's militaristic tradition.
Obama is planning to address what organizers expect will be huge crowds at the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, which is located in the center of a long and busy intersection that straddles the lush, public Tiergarten gardens and stretches up to the Brandenburg Gate.
The choice of site was made after Chancellor Angela Merkel made it known to Obama's team that she did not approve of him campaigning at the Brandenburg Gate, both the symbol of the Cold War that divided the two Germanys and later, in 1989, the symbol of German reunification. Other conservative politicians said Obama had no business choosing a site before he was even elected president and using it for election purposes.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, in contrast, said he would welcome Obama speaking there.
After days of back and forth between the chancellery and the Obama campaign, the Victory Column was selected.
But Andreas Schockenhoff, deputy leader of the conservative bloc in Parliament, said Sunday that the choice of the Victory Column, also known as the Golden Angel, was an "unhappy symbol" since it represented so much of Germany's militaristic past.
Rainer Brüderle, deputy leader of the opposition Free Democrats, said Obama's advisers had little idea of the historical significance of the Victory Column. "It was the symbol of German superiority over Denmark, Austria and France," Brüderle told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
The monument was built in 1864 to commemorate Prussia's victory over Denmark. When it was inaugurated, Prussia had defeated Austria during the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
The column has been originally located near the Reichstag, now the Bundestag, or German Parliament, which is close to the Brandenburg Gate. But Adolf Hitler relocated it about two kilometers, or one mile, toward the western part of the city to the Grosser Stern, or Great Star.
http://www.iht.com/articles/
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