Democratic Nominee Barack Obama To Speak At Berlin's Victory Column

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will not be making his speech in Berlin before the Brandenburg Gate but at Victory Column, German news agency Deutshe Well said on Friday.

Obama will leaving for Europe and the Middle East next week in what pundits say is a bid to bolster his foreign policy and national security credentials. The presumptive Democratic nominee will make the much-awaited speech in Berlin on July 24.

Obama will still have the Brandenburg Gate as backdrop since the iconic site sits at the opposite end of a tree-line boulevard from the Victory Column.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel said last week that the presumptive Democratic nominee was considering speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the site of the famous speech given by former President Ronald Reagan in 1987 that called on former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."

The report was met with little enthusiasm by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said last week during the G8 Summit in Japan that it was up to Obama to find an appropriate location for his speech but that doing so at the historic site would be "a bit odd."

German government spokesman Thomas Steq later on made clear Merkel's stand on the issue by saying, "It is unusual to do electioneering abroad... No German candidate for high office would even think of using the National Mall (in Washington) or Red Square in Moscow for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate," according to The Age.

Erwin Huber, head of Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU), was also reported by the BBC as saying last week, "Obama didn't do anything for German unification... That's not a criticism, but as a result there is no reason to grant him such a privilege."

Some German officials, such as Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Frankfurter Rundschau and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, welcomed the idea of Obama speaking at the historic site but the strong opposition triggered speculation on the Internet that the White House had pressured the Merkel to deny Obama's plans. The White House has refuted such reports.

Obama will be meeting privately with Merkel in Berlin the same day he makes his speech, according to a German spokesman cited by Time.