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Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

Kennedy in Berlin

Photographs by Ulrich Mack

With Photographs by Ulrich Mack
“Ich bin ein Berliner.” With these words, John F. Kennedy made history. Addressing a crowd of several hundred thousand in West Berlin, two years after the erection of the Berlin Wall, the young and charismatic president conveyed solidarity and support for West Germany on behalf of the United States, marking the height of good relations between the two countries and a decisive moment in Cold War history as well.
           
The local media were poised to record this momentous event. Among the photographers and reporters covering the Kennedy visit was twenty-eight-year-old Ulrich Mack, whose never-before-published photographs feature the president in a variety of settings: a triumphal ticker-tape procession down the main street of West Berlin with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, mayor of Berlin; a visit to the notorious Checkpoint Charlie where Kennedy stands atop the observation deck; a crowd of cheering West Berliners encircling the president following his impassioned speech. Mack’s photographs are technically superb but, more important, they are guided by an instinctive feel for capturing great moments—including those on the sidelines that, in their candor, often surpass the staged appearances. For the modern-day viewer, many of the photos are also remarkable for having been taken at very close range.

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of this historic occasion, Kennedy in Berlin reproduces more than one hundred of Mack’s photos taken throughout the state visit in June 1963—selected by the photographer himself and editor Hans-Michael Koetzle, offering a look at this important event.


144 pages | 120 halftones | 10 1/4 x 9 1/2 | © 2013

Art: Photography

History: American History


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Reviews

“To commemorate the fiftieth  anniversary of Kennedy’s trip to Berlin, Hirmer Publishers has put Kennedy in Berlin with 120 black-and-white images, many of which have never been published. The photographs follow Kennedy as he traveled through Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, and West Berlin. . . . While the photographs tell a detailed and thorough story of the trip, there is also a strong sense of the tragedy that would happen five months later when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.”

Slate

Table of Contents

“Got to Germany, go to Berlin!”: John F. Kennedy in Germany
      Egon Bahr
Cologne: Sunday, June 23, 1963
Bonn: Sunday, June 23, 1963
Bonn: Monday, June 24, 1963
Hanau: Tuesday, June 25, 1963
Frankfurt and Wiesbaden: Tuesday, June 25 1963
Berlin: Wednesday, June 26, 1963
“The Guest Who Makes the Germans Ecstatic”: On the Kennedy Coverage by the Photographer Ulrich Mack
      Hans-Michael Koetzle
The First Summer Fairy Tale: How with John F. Kennedy, what belonged together came together
      Jasper von Altenbockum

Ulrich Mack Biographical Chronology
Selected Exhibitions and Publications
Awards
About the Authors
Credits

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