ABSTRACT
The headlines of the Bild-Zeitung on 16 August 1961 are well known. Framed with drawings of barbed wire, Axel Springer’s German mass tabloid declared in bold letters: ‘Der Osten handelt—was tut der Westen? Der Westen tut NICHTS! Präsident Kennedy schweigt… Macmillan geht auf die Jagd…und Adenauer schimpft auf Willy Brandt’ (The East Is Acting—What Is the West Doing? The West Is Doing NOTHING! President Kennedy Keeps Silent… Macmillan Goes Hunting…and Adenauer Complains about Willy Brandt). 1 The newspaper seemed to be expressing only what millions of Germans and above all Berliners were thinking in the days immediately after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961. Rage and fury but also disappointment and bitterness were the prevailing emotions: rage and fury over the Ulbricht regime’s measures, disappointment and bitterness over the obvious passivity of the West German government, but even more over that of the Western powers and especially the USA under President Kennedy. Two years later, however, the tide had turned. On 16 July 1963, the Bild-Zeitung looked back at the events of 1961 in another light: ‘If there is one city where Kennedy—even if he wanted—cannot be a foreign conqueror, this city is Berlin. This city is alive because of America…. On 13 August 1961 Kennedy was indeed afraid of conflict—of nuclear conflict. Perhaps this fear was unjustified. But someone who cares about mankind’s survival does not deserve defamation.’ 2
