Has Obama bombed out on his second pick for his big Germany speech?

The German magazine Spiegel Online has an interesting piece up that discusses Obama’s second and (supposedly final) choice for where he’ll make his big speech next week – the Victory Column – and how some German politicians are still unhappy with his choice, because of what the area symbolizes:

Finally, Barack Obama’s campaign has settled on a site for his Berlin speech. But some German politicians have now criticized his choice as being one full of Nazi-related symbolism.

Finally, it’s official. Barack Obama, when he arrives in Berlin on July 24, will hold his speech at the SiegessÀule monument in the heart of the city, according to an announcement made by his campaign office in Chicago on Sunday. In his speech, he will speak about the “historic US-German partnership” and about the importance of strengthening trans-Atlantic relations, according to his campaign team.

Andreas Schockenhoff of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said, “the SiegessÀule in Berlin is dedicated to a victory over neighbors who are today our European friends and allies. It is a problematic symbol.”

The exact location of Obama’s speech had become a matter of intense speculation in Berlin after his campaign team originally suggested an appearance at the Brandenburg Gate. Many, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, questioned whether the site — where Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both spoke when they were in the White House — was appropriate for a candidate. Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who is a major figure in Germany’s Social Democrats, was in favor of the Brandenburg Gate site and the Obama visit quickly became yet another excuse for German politicians to fire off barbs at each other. 

The SiegessÀule is located about a kilometer down the Strasse des 17. Juni from the Brandenburg Gate. His speech is set to begin at 7 p.m. and Berlin is expecting a massive number of Obama fans to show up — between 10,000 and a million according to one city official quoted in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.

Still, even as the issue of his speech’s location has now been settled, a number of politicians in Berlin are still dissatisfied with the site. The SiegessÀule — or Victory Column — was erected in memory of Prussia’s victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870/71). The column originally stood in front of the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, but was moved by Adolf Hitler to its current location in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital “Germania.”

“The SiegessÀule in Berlin was moved to where it is now by Adolf Hitler. He saw it as a symbol of German superiority and of the victorious wars against Denmark, Austria and France,” the deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Rainer Brüderle, told Bild am Sonntag. He raised the question as to “whether Barack Obama was advised correctly in his choice of the SiegessÀule as the site to hold a speech on his vision for a more cooperative world.”

In response to this piece, Ed Morrissey makes a couple of good points:

Obama could be excused for his gaffe, except for two reasons.  His team certainly understood the historical weight that the Brandenburg Gate would have lent his event, so why didn’t they bother to ask the Germans about the SiegessÀule?  Quite obviously, the Germans understand the meaning and subtext of the monument, and most of them wonder why Obama does not.  Maybe this is a better example of clueless Americans traveling abroad than those who can only say Merci, beaucoup.

The more basic question is why Obama feels the need to conduct a campaign event among Germans.  Meeting with foreign leaders makes sense for a man with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, but that doesn’t require massive rallies among people who aren’t voting in this election.  In his rush to look impressive for no one’s purposes but his own, Obama has made himself look ignorant and arrogant all over again.

And the fact that he’s so eager to give a speech in front of people who’ll have no say in the upcoming US election brings up another question: for a guy who apparently is so eager to impress not just foreign leaders but citizens from those countries as well, as well as approving to have a star-studded cast of US pressies, why is he snubbing the foreign media?

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