Robert H. Lochner, 84, Dies; Helped Kennedy With '63 Berlin Speech

New York Times ^ | Sept. 22, 2003 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[OESY]

Robert H. Lochner, who as John F. Kennedy's interpreter helped the president practice his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963, has died, his family said Monday. He was 84.

A journalist by trade who helped revive free media in West Germany after World War II, Mr. Lochner died of a lung embolism early Sunday at his home in western Berlin, said his daughter Anita.

Mr. Lochner was head of Radio in the American Sector, a radio station supported by the United States in West Berlin during Kennedy's triumphal visit to West Germany and the non-Communist half of the divided capital during the cold war.

The high point was Kennedy's electrifying speech on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin, a ringing defense of freedom less than two years after East Germany had built the Berlin Wall. Mr. Lochner helped Kennedy practice the key phrase — German for "I am a Berliner" — with the help of the phonetic spelling "ish been oin bear-lee-ner." Apparently unknown to the White House, the phrase had an alternative meaning: "I am a jelly doughnut."

Born Oct. 20, 1918, in New York, Robert H. Lochner grew up in Berlin. His father, Louis P. Lochner, was a correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning bureau chief in Germany for The Associated Press from 1924 until the United States entered the war in 1941.

After studying in the United States, the younger Lochner returned to Germany as a United States soldier after the Nazi surrender. Thanks to his knowledge of German, he became chief interpreter for United States occupation forces in western Germany and chief editor of the Neue Zeitung in Frankfurt from 1949 to 1952. Later jobs took him to Vietnam and Washington, before he retired in Berlin.

Mr. Lochner's survivors, in addition to his daughter Anita, include two other daughters and a son.

[OESY]

Shortly thereafter JFK flew to Copenhagen where he announced, "I am a Danish."

[AF68]

Then JFK went to Begium and declared, "I am a Belgian waffle."

[reagan_fanatic]

What did he say when he flew to Turkey?

[Marauder]

"I am a dollop of cranberry sauce." Just a guess ...

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

"I'm a turkey!!!!!"

[mikeb704]

Kennedy has been determined by the deep thinkers to have been quite eloquent, so I always enjoy this quote from the first presidential debate in 1960:
“Well, I would say in the latter, that the – and that’s what I found somewhat unsatisfactory about the figures, Mr. Nixon, that you used in your previous speech. When you talk about the Truman administration, you – Mr. Truman came to office in 1944, and at the end of the war, and the difficulties that were facing the United States during that period of transition, 1946, when price controls were lifted, so it’s rather difficult to use an overall figure of those seven and one-half years and comparing them to the last eight years. I prefer to take the overall percentage of the last 20 years of the Democrats and eight of the Republicans, to show an overall period of growth. . . .So that I don’t think that we have moved . . . .with sufficient vigor.”

Michael M. Bates: My Side of the Swamp

[Sgt_Schultze]

JFK was speaking of his brother, the real jelly donut...

fat doofus

[JOE6PAK]

JFK then went to Begium and declared,"I AM A JELLY DOUGHNUT and my little Brother Ted is an ARSE-HOLE fall down DRUNK MURDERER".

ech bein cLINTOON izz HER-RAPIST!

[AmericanInTokyo]

sheesh. where's a portable liposuction kit when you NEED one!

[weegee]

[tracer]

I heard that she is marketing her own line of handbags in New York, but you'll have to ask Bent Willie about her present whereabouts.....

[Swiss Babs]

I lived in Berlin for several years. The pastry that resembles a jelly doughnut is called a Berliner Pfannekuchen. There is no way an inhabitant of Berlin could confuse "Ich bin ein Berliner" with "I am an jelly doughnut". JFK's statement was extremely important, a few months after the wall was built. The silly comment in this article ist just simply poor journalism.

[OESY]

JFK's statement was extremely important, a few months after the wall was built.

JFK was one of our most inspiring presidents (and a far cry from where Dems are today), not the least to the embattled Berliners. Also, for what it's worth, I too have been to Berlin many times and have had a Berliner.

Nevertheless, contemporary tapes show the audience pausing for a split second before bursting into thunderous applause. It really is as if he had pronounced himself "a Danish". But like the crowds that shouted "Gorby, Gorby" in 1989, they were smart enough to recognize the potential of the momentous occasion.