In the early 1960s, Soviet-controlled East Germany was hemorrhaging people to the West, as Germans fled the Communists and the Stasi (the East German secret police). Berlin was located in East Germany but was partitioned after World War II into four sectors: a Soviet sector, and three sectors controlled by the Americans, British, and French. The blue districts in the below figure (those controlled by the Americans, the British, and the French) became “West Berlin,” while the red districts were called “East Berlin”:
Beginning on 12 August 1961, the Soviets built the Berlin Wall to prevent East Germans from fleeing to the western-controlled sectors of Berlin – the dotted line in the above figure consisting of barbed wire, concrete barriers, tank traps, and checkpoints. Checkpoints were crossing points between the Soviet and Allied sectors, the most famous being “Checkpoint Charlie,” which was featured in James Bond and other Cold War movies of the era:
Charlie was notable for its location on Friedrichstrasse, a historic street in the American-occupied city center. Even more important was that it was the only gateway where East Germany allowed Allied diplomats, military personnel and foreign tourists to pass into Berlin’s Soviet sector. In response, the United States, France and Britain stationed military police at Checkpoint Charlie to ensure their officials had ready access to the border.
Checkpoint Charlie played a supporting role in one of the most famous prisoner exchanges of the Cold War. The main swap took place at the nearby Glienicke Bridge, where captured American U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was traded for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet who had been arrested in New York and convicted of espionage.
The construction of the Berlin Wall was just the latest Soviet attempt to intimidate the Allies during the Cold War. One of the first major confrontations precipitated the Berlin airlift:
On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded all road, rail and water routes into Berlin’s Allied-controlled areas, stifling the vital flow of food, coal and other supplies. Soviet troop numbers dwarfed those of the Allies, which had drawn down after the war, so there was little the Allies could do about it militarily.
But the Soviets couldn’t block Allied airspace, so U.S. and UK forces took to the skies to get supplies to the Allied sectors. On June 26, the U.S. launched Operation Vittles, which the U.K. later joined. It was the biggest aerial resupply mission ever embarked upon. The Allies also imposed their own counter-blockade, restricting trade with East Germany and East Berlin.
The Soviets lifted the blockade nearly a year later on 11 May 1949 after the Allies had “delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin via more than 278,000 airdrops.”
On 26 June 1963, the fifteenth anniversary of the initiation of the Berlin airlift, US President John F. Kennedy made a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate at the Wall to deliver an address to the people of West Berlin, “celebrating the city as a symbol of freedom and democracy in its resistance to tyranny and oppression.” In his speech at the Wall, he included these words:
“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was ‘Civis Romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ”
This phrase electrified the world and put the Soviets on notice that he stood firmly in solidarity with the people of West Berlin. Silent colorized parts of his visit and speech are shown in this short video.
Fast forward to today. Since 20 January 2021, the Hologram’s administration has been moving inexorably to curtail the freedoms and liberties of Trump supporters and American patriots in ways that are eerily similar to the pressures exerted by the Soviets on the Allies and German people after World War II:
- Just one day after the 6 January occupation of Capitol Hill by rioters, The Hologram himself declared those people to be “domestic terrorists” prior to the completion of any investigation into the matter and set the tone for the persecution that was to come:
- On his very first day in office, The Hologram “directed his national security team to lead a 100-day comprehensive review of U.S. Government efforts to address domestic terrorism.”
- The 6 January riot at the Capitol was labeled by the Democrat-media complex as an “armed insurrection” despite the FBI’s eventual admission that no guns were found among the protestors.
- The Democrat-controlled House rushed to impeach President Trump for “inciting the 6 January insurrection” (thankfully, cooler heads prevailed in the US Senate).
- DOJ and the FBI launched one of the “largest investigations in American history” to examine the events of 6 January. Some of 6 January rioters have been incarcerated in the equivalent of solitary confinement while awaiting charges and disposition of their cases. These unfortunate people are uniformly labeled as “domestic terrorists” by leftists on social media.
- A purge of “white nationalists and white supremacists” is underway in the US military. The definitions are elastic.
- A Stasi-like committee has been formed in DoD to “investigate” extremist infiltration of the military. Surely the new deputy inspector general for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military (DIEM) will be objective in investigating extremism and include BLM and Antifa in their definition? I think not, given that the investigating committee is comprised of left-wing activists and anti-American extremists.
- On Tuesday the White House “released a report that designates the Jan. 6 Capitol riot a ‘domestic terrorist attack’ and endorses an internet purge of ‘extremist’ content.”
That new report is the culmination of Democrat political efforts to brand Trump supporters as extremists and domestic terrorists, and this paragraph from the White House “fact sheet” (sic) tells it all (emphasis added):
The review was rooted in an expert assessment of the domestic terrorism threat provided by the intelligence and law enforcement communities. An unclassified summary of that assessment was released in March so the public could see the key findings. It found that the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat are (1) racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race and (2) anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, such as militia violent extremists.
This is nothing more than Democrat politics taken to their extreme by the equivalent of “experts” who are Stasi wannabes! Anyone objective American with a brain knows that the real domestic terrorists are Antifa and the Black Lives Matter brownshirts after watching a year’s worth of videos of destruction perpetrated by these criminals in American cities (to the tune of over $2 billion worth of damage!). Yet, not a single word is mentioned of those real domestic terrorists in that White House announcement.
If anything, the Democrats are projecting the sins of their foot soldiers in Antifa and BLM onto their political enemies (us). The Democrats’ political objective is ultimately to designate any Trump supporter as a “domestic terrorist” and then turn the force of government against them/us in order to suppress their/our political speech (and thereby preclude a return to the Oval Office by Donald J. Trump).
Here is how Tucker Carlson describes that memo and their intentions:
“Because of January 6, says the chief law enforcement officer in the United States of America and many other members of Joe Biden’s cabinet, we must now use law enforcement and military force to arrest, imprison, and otherwise crush anyone who leads opposition to Joe Biden’s government. That’s their position. They say that out loud. They did today.”
Sorry, Democrats. I stand firm with the Trump supporters who attended the 6 Jan. rally and did not enter the Capitol and were simply exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to political speech, as well as their support for President Trump. That the Democrats are doing their utmost to paint them/us all with the broad brush of being “domestic terrorists” is analogous to the Stasi condemning East Germans trying to escape to the freedoms and liberty in the West in the 1950s and 1960s as being “criminals” and “enemies of the Communist state.” I will gladly characterize myself as an “enemy of the Democrat/Communist state” that the Hologram and his minions are implementing, as well as a celebrator of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights that they hate!
And by their perverted definition of the phrase “domestic terrorist,” and in memory of JFK’s memorable speech 58 years ago this month, I will gladly state that “Ich bin ein inländischer terroristischen”!