ENGLISH SPEECH RONALD REAGAN Tear Down This Wall English Subtitles

Thank you very much. Chancellor Kohl, 
Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen:  

Twenty-four years ago, President John F. Kennedy 
visited Berlin, speaking to the people of this  

city and the world at the city hall. Well, 
since then two other presidents have come,  

each in his turn, to Berlin. And today I, 
myself, make my second visit to your city. 

We come to Berlin, we American Presidents, because 
it’s our duty to speak, in this place, of freedom.  

But I must confess, we’re drawn 
here by other things as well:  

by the feeling of history in this city, more 
than 500 years older than our own nation;  

by the beauty of the Grunewald and the Tiergarten; 
most of all, by your courage and determination.  

Perhaps the composer, PaulLincke, understood 
something about American Presidents.  

You see, like so many Presidents before me, 
I come here today because wherever I go,  

whatever I do: “Ich hab noch einen kofferin 
Berlin.” [I still have a suitcase in Berlin.] 

Our gathering today is being broadcast 
throughout Western Europe and North America.  

I understand that it is being seen and heard as 
well in the East. To those listening throughout  

Eastern Europe, I extend my warmest greetings 
and the good will of the American people.  

To those listening in East Berlin, a 
special word: Although I cannot be with you,  

I address my remarks to you just as surely 
as to those standing here before me.  

For I join you, as I join your fellow 
countrymen in the West, in this firm,  

this unalterable belief: Es gibt nur 
ein Berlin. [There is only one Berlin.] 

Behind me stands a wall that encircles 
the free sectors of this city,  

part of a vast system of barriers that 
divides the entire continent of Europe.  

From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across 
Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete,  

dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, 
there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But  

there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the 
same–still a restriction on the right to travel,  

still an instrument to impose upon ordinary 
men and women the will of a totalitarian state.  

Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges 
most clearly; here, cutting across your city,  

where the news photo and the television screen 
have imprinted this brutal division of a continent  

upon the mind of the world. Standing before the 
Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated  

from his fellow men. Every man is a 
Berliner, forced to look upon a scar. 

President von Weizsacker has said:  

“The German question is open as long 
as the Brandenburg Gate is closed.”  

Today I say: As long as this gate is closed, as 
long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand,  

it is not the German question alone that remains 
open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.  

Yet I do not come here to lament. For 
I find in Berlin a message of hope,  

even in the shadow of this 
wall, a message of triumph. 

In this season of spring in 1945, the people of 
Berlin emerged from their air raid shelters to  

find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the 
people of the United States reached out to help.  

Andin 1947 Secretary of State–as 
you’ve been told-George Marshall  

announced the creation of what would 
become known as the Marshall plan.  

Speaking precisely 40 years ago this 
month, he said: “Our policy is directed not  

against any country or doctrine, but against 
hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” 

In the Reichstag a few moments ago, 
I saw a display commemorating this  

40th anniversary of the Marshall plan. 
I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out,  

gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I 
understand that Berliners of my own generation  

can remember seeing signs like it dotted 
throughout the Western sectors of the city.  

The sign read simply: “The Marshall plan is 
helping here to strengthen the free world.”  

A strong, free world in the West,  

that dream became real. Japan rose 
from ruin to become an economic giant.  

Italy, France, Belgium–virtually every nation in 
Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth;  

the European Community was founded.
In West Germany and here in Berlin,  

there took place an economic miracle, 
the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer,  

Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood 
the practical importance of liberty–that  

just as truth can flourish only when the 
journalist is given freedom of speech,  

so prosperity can come about only when the 
farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom.  

The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free 
trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to1960 alone,  

the standard of living in West 
Germany and Berlin doubled. 

Where four decades ago there was rubble, today 
in West Berlin there is the greatest industrial  

output of any city in Germany-busy office 
blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues,  

and the spreading lawns of park land. Where a 
city’s culture seemed to have been destroyed,  

today there are two great universities, orchestras 
and an opera, countless theaters, and museums.  

Where there was want, today 
there’s abundance–food,  

clothing, automobiles-the 
wonderful goods of the Ku’damm.  

From devastation, from utter ruin, you 
Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city  

that once again ranks as one of the greatest 
on Earth. The Soviets may have had other plans.  

But, my friends, there were a few 
things the Soviets didn’t count on  

Berliner herz, Berlinerhumor, ja, und Berliner 
schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes,  

and a Berliner  

schnauze.]
In the 1950’s,  

Khrushchev predicted: “We will bury you.” But 
in the West today, we see a free world that has  

achieved a level of prosperity and well-being 
unprecedented in all human history. In the  

Communist world, we see failure, technological 
backwardness, declining standards of health.  

Now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, 
be coming to understand the importance of freedom.  

We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of 
reform and openness. Some political prisoners  

have been released. Certain foreign news 
broadcasts are no longer being jammed.  

Some economic enterprises have been permitted to 
operate with greater freedom from state control.  

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in 
the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures,  

intended to raise false hopes in the West, 
or to strengthen the Soviet system without  

changing it? We welcome change and openness; for 
we believe that freedom and security go together,  

that the advance of human liberty can 
only strengthen the cause of world peace. 

There is one sign the Soviets can 
make that would be unmistakable,  

that would advance dramatically the cause of 
freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev,  

if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity 
for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,  

if you seek liberalization: Come here to 
this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!  

Mr. Gorbachev,  

tear down this wall! 

I understand the fear of war and the pain of 
division that afflict this continent–and I pledge  

to you my country’s efforts to help overcome these 
burdens. To be sure, we in the West must resist  

Soviet expansion. So we must maintain defenses 
of unassailable strength. Yet we seek peace;  

so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides. 
Beginning 10 years ago, the Soviets challenged the  

Western alliance with a grave new threat, hundreds 
of new and more deadly SS20 nuclear missiles,  

capable of-striking every capital in Europe. 
The Western alliance responded by committing  

itself to a counter deployment unless the 
Soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution;  

namely, the elimination of 
such weapons on both sides.  

For many months, the Soviets refused to bargain 
in earnestness. As the alliance, in turn, prepared  

to go forward with its counter deployment, 
there were difficult days–days of protests  

like those during my 1982 visit to this city–and 
the Soviets later walked away from the table. 

But through it all, the alliance held firm. 
And I invite those who protested then–I  

invite those who protest today–to mark 
this fact: Because we remained strong,  

the Soviets came back to the table. And because 
we remained strong, today we have within reach  

the possibility, not merely of limiting the growth 
of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time,  

an entire class of nuclear weapons from the 
face of the Earth. As I speak, NATO ministers  

are meeting in Iceland to review the progress 
of our proposals for eliminating these weapons.  

At the talks in Geneva, we have also proposed 
deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons.  

And the Western allies have 
likewise made far-reaching proposals  

to reduce the danger of conventional war and 
to place a total ban on chemical weapons. 

While we pursue these arms reductions, 
I pledge to you that we will maintain  

the capacity to deter Soviet aggression 
at any level at which it might occur.  

And in cooperation with many of our allies, 
the United States is pursuing the Strategic  

Defense Initiative-research to base deterrence 
not on the threat of offensive retaliation,  

but on defenses that truly defend; on systems, 
in short, that will not target populations,  

but shield them. By these means we seek 
to increase the safety of Europe and  

all the world. But we must remember 
a crucial fact: East and West do not  

mistrust each other because we are armed; 
we are armed because we mistrust each other.  

And our differences are not about weapons 
but about liberty. When President Kennedy  

spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, 
freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege.  

And today, despite all the pressures upon this 
city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty.  

And freedom itself is transforming the globe.
In the Philippines, in South and Central America,  

democracy has been given a rebirth. Throughout the 
Pacific, free markets are working miracle after  

miracle of economic growth. In the industrialized 
nations, a technological revolution is taking  

place–a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic 
advances in computers and telecommunications. 

In Europe, only one nation and those it controls 
refuse to join the community of freedom.  

Yet in this age of redoubled economic 
growth, of information and innovation,  

the Soviet Union faces a choice: It must make 
fundamental changes, or it will become obsolete.  

Today thus represents a moment of hope. We in 
the West stand ready to cooperate with the East  

to promote true openness, to break 
down barriers that separate people,  

to create a safer, freer world.
And surely there is no better place than Berlin,  

the meeting place of East 
and West, to make a start.  

Free people of Berlin: Today, as in the past, the 
United States stands for the strict observance  

and full implementation of all parts of the Four 
Power Agreement of 1971. Let us use this occasion,  

the 750th anniversary of this city, to usher in 
a new era, to seek a still fuller, richer life  

for the Berlin of the future. Together, let us 
maintain and develop the ties between the Federal  

Republic and the Western sectors of Berlin, 
which is permitted by the 1971 agreement. 

And I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work 
to bring the Eastern and Western parts  

of the city closer together, so 
that all the inhabitants of all  

Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with 
life in one of the great cities of the world.  

To open Berlin still further 
to all Europe, East and West,  

let us expand the vital air access to this 
city, finding ways of making commercial  

air service to Berlin more convenient, 
more comfortable, and more economical.  

We look to the day when West Berlin can become one 
of the chief aviation hubs in all central Europe. 

With our French and British partners, the 
United States is prepared to help bring  

international meetings to Berlin. It would 
be only fitting for Berlin to serve as the  

site of United Nations meetings, or world 
conferences on human rights and arms control  

or other issues that call for 
international cooperation.  

There is no better way to establish hope for 
the future than to enlighten young minds,  

and we would be honored to sponsor summer youth 
exchanges, cultural events, and other programs  

for young Berliners from the East. Our French and 
British friends, I’m certain, will do the same.  

And it’s my hope that an authority can 
be found in East Berlin to sponsor visits  

from young people of the Western sectors.
One final proposal, one close to my heart:  

Sport represents a source of enjoyment and 
ennoblement, and you many have noted that  

the Republic of Korea–South Korea-has offered 
to permit certain events of the 1988 Olympics  

to take place in the North. International sports 
competitions of all kinds could take place in  

both parts of this city. And what better way to 
demonstrate to the world the openness of this city  

than to offer in some future year to hold the 
Olympic games here in Berlin, East and West? 

In these four decades, as I have said, 
you Berliners have built a great city.  

You’ve done so in spite of threats–the Soviet 
attempts to impose the East-mark, the blockade.  

Today the city thrives in spite of the challenges 
implicit in the very presence of this wall.  

What keeps you here? Certainly there’s a 
great deal to be said for your fortitude,  

for your defiant courage. But I 
believe there’s something deeper,  

something that involves Berlin’s whole 
look and feel and way of life–not  

mere sentiment. No one could live long in Berlin 
without being completely disabused of illusions.  

Something instead, that has seen the difficulties 
of life in Berlin but chose to accept them,  

that continues to build this good and proud city 
in contrast to a surrounding totalitarian presence  

that refuses to release human energies or 
aspirations. Something that speaks with a  

powerful voice of affirmation, that says yes to 
this city, yes to the future, yes to freedom.  

In a word, I would submit that what 
keeps you in Berlin is love–love  

both profound and abiding.
Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter,  

to the most fundamental distinction of all between 
East and West. The totalitarian world produces  

backwardness because it does such violence to the 
spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create,  

to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds 
even symbols of love and of worship an affront.  

Years ago, before the East Germans 
began rebuilding their churches,  

they erected a secular structure: the television 
tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since,  

the authorities have been working to correct 
what they view as the tower’s one major flaw,  

treating the glass sphere at the top 
with paints and chemicals of every kind.  

Yet even today when the Sun 
strikes that sphere–that  

sphere that towers over all Berlin–the 
light makes the sign of the cross.  

There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of 
love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed. 

As I looked out a moment ago from the 
Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity,  

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon 
the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner,  

“This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.”  

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For 
it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand  

truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.
And I would like, before I close, to say one word.  

I have read, and I have been questioned since 
I’ve been here about certain demonstrations  

against my coming. And I would like to say just 
one thing, and to those who demonstrate so.  

I wonder if they have ever asked themselves 
that if they should have the kind of government  

they apparently seek, no one would ever 
be able to do what they’re doing again.