Berlin Airlift: Germans look back — and forward

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:47 EDT

BERLIN — Germans who care about their relations with the United States are in an upbeat mood this week, looking both to the past and the future.

Thursday is the 60th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Airlift — the daring American-led operation to feed nearly 2 million West Berliners under Soviet blockade.

As they celebrate the event with fond reminiscences of American courage and generosity, many Germans are filled with excitement at the possibility of Barack Obama capturing the White House. German media have anointed the Democratic candidate the new John F. Kennedy and see him as being more in sync with their views on the Iraq war and global warming.

Karsten Voigt, the conservative government’s point man on U.S. relations, said this month that many Germans see in Obama a “mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.”

What most Germans want is “an American president again whom it does not just respect because he represents a world power, but with whom it can identify, whom it can love,” he told ZDF television.

TheState.com: World Extra

Berlin Airlift: Germans look back — and forward