"Ich bin ein Berliner." President Kennedy said those words on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin to an estimated audience of as many as 450,000 people. Although the Berlin Wall wouldn’t come down until over 26 years later, the words, “I am a Berliner,” had a positive reaction with his audience, who were obviously hoping that East and West Berlin would be united into one city again. This event, which took place at the same time as my history/suspense novel, East of the Wall, showed that the United States backed the fight for freedom and reunification in Germany.

President Reagan was closer to the demise of the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987 when he said in a speech in Berlin, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” In 2019, a bronze statue of Reagan was unveiled near the site of his speech.

The end of the Berlin Wall actually came on November 9, 1989 when the East German border guards stopped keeping residents of East Berlin from crossing the Wall into West Berlin and thousands of them streamed through it.East of the Wall