Did JFK say "I am a Jelly donut?"

[Cyrano]

"Ich bin ein Berliner."

When John F. Kennedy gave his speech in Berlin in 1963, he said in German: "Ich bin ein Berliner."

The translations on goggle and elsewhere are not definitive.

He either said: "I am a Berliner." or "I am a jelly donut."

Is there anyone here fluent in German who can defintively interpret what he said?

[madaboutharry]

1. A 3 year old JFK, Jr

called him Mr. Poo Poo Pants. Maybe that is what he said. :)

[ProfessorGAC]

54. I Thought It Was . .

. . poo-poo head! Either way; pretty funny for a kid to call the POTUS that.
The Professor

[Happyhippychick]

2. Mmmmmmm.....donuts.....

I'm channeling my inner Homer.

[melody]

3. Yes, he said "I am a jelly donut" but then many foreign dignitaries have made similar gaffes

There is a page of them somewhere. They're quite funny. Human beings are human beings. People wanting
to denigrate Americans as a people reach for that kind of crap.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

32. Here's a list of U.S. Presidential gaffes

I remember cracking up over a visit Jimmy Carter made to Poland during his Presidency. Apparently, his translator made a mistake when Carter said "I understand your anxiety" to the Polish people. The translator told the people of Poland that Carter said "I desire you sexually".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._presidential_faux-pas,_gaffes,_and_unfortunate_incidents

[FourScore]

37. I am fluent in German and lived much of my life in Berlin.

The sentence has a double-meaning. My best friend was there with his parents when Kennedy made that speech. He said people joked about the double-meaning but that all Berliners knew what Kennedy was really saying. He was deeply loved by the Berliners. The Luftbruecke was an amazing military and human success story. Berliners still talk about it with real feeling. It's one of our greatest Cold War military campaigns and one every child in America should know about. Unfortunately, no one does.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is a great line. Understand what was going on in Berlin around the time Kennedy made that speech and you will feel a surge of American pride you haven't felt in a long time.

[melody]

42. Tell that to UK comic Eddie Izzard - he has a 10 minute riff making fun of him for it

But then Izzard is a Brit who hates Americans, so he'd have a different take.

[Orsino]

45. Yes. Wouldn't it have been great...

...if Kennedy'd given that speech in Frankfurt or Hamburg?

[truebrit71]

52. Wow...wrong much? He "hates Americans"? Really? Maybe just the stupid fuckers...

...but no, he is quite fond of America and Americans...it's the STUPID ones he can't stand...

[melody]

58. No, he goes on and on about "Americans" ... he makes no distinctions in his stand-up

It's a lot of "you people" and that sort of thing. He also privately said to my friend's agent,
when they were all at the Comedy Club, that his only country was Europe and he celebrated the end of the
USA. The USA is my country and we've not been "all bad" any more than Europe has been.

He sounds like a bigot to me. Sorry, but he does. If he's not, then I stand corrected, but he sounds
as bigoted about Americans as some idiots in my family are about French people.

[EOTE]

61. Eddie Izzard thinks that Europe is a country?

Then he has some nerve talking about "stupid Americans". He'd make good friends with Kelly Pickler.

[melody]

65. His view is that the EU is one country -- it's a popular view among the European left

Primates pack up against perceived enemies ... it's the way the globalists keep us fighting with each other.
They've made (with the Bush family's help) the US the great Satan and in comes Globalist-manipulated Europe
to save the world. Tis a very old plan to crush us come to fruition.

[truebrit71]

71. That too is total bollocks...

...but there you go...

BTW when he spoke to my friend's agent he said how much he loved America but could never get his head around the duality of the American persona...fearsome democracy loving at one end, and fearsome ignorant warrior at the other..

YOUR twisted views about him and Europeans in general is very bloody clear however...:eyes:

[melody]

72. I love Europeans - I am one

Other than the quarter of me that's Cherokee, all my people come from the UK. I have a great deal of affection
for Europeans, but I'm also quite familiar with the evil you have growing there which is heavily entrenched with
our own Bush-league monsters.

Unfortunately, your depiction of "the American persona" (which does not exist, except for some fiction in
the minds of others) shows me you agree with Izzard. I'm not surprised you agree with him.

Who is your friend's agent? Ach, that's right, you were just pulling that out of your ear to shoot me down
because you don't want to believe one of those people with an evil American "persona".

[truebrit71]

79. I am a Brit, I have lived in the US for over half my life...tell me again How I don't know anything

..about America...

:eyes:

[melody]

80. I didn't say that.

But you will read what you like as you'll see in Eddie Izzard what you prefer. I see something
else. Only Eddie Izzard knows the truth.

[truebrit71]

69. Sorry but that is just not correct in anyway shape or form...

..

[melody]

76. Truebrit, it is true, I'm merely quoting him

If he doesn't feel that way in reality, then I stand corrected. All I can do is interpret his
ideas from his expression of them.

It's pretty clear Limbaugh hates French people for the same bigoted reasons. I don't think Limbaugh
is any fairer or funnier than Izzard. I would say the exact same thing if Izzard's targets were Canadians
or Russians or whomever. I don't like ethnic humor. I find it insulting on a very essential, human level.

[truebrit71]

77. You must lead a very boring life then...you have my sympathies...

He is most definitely NOT a bigot though, that is just reading waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into his humour.....

[melody]

78. Not in the least - I just work on the computer. lol

Look, no hard feelings. You obviously are hugely emotionally invested in this as you've strayed several times into personal attacks. I don't want to alert on you and get you in trouble since I enjoy your other posts and I think you mean well. I'll just ignore all the follow-ups to this current thread of discussion.

[truebrit71]

83. LOL...no hard feelings here...it just seems to me that you are reading way too much into this...

...and maybe miss the point of his humour...

Different strokes for different folks!

No harm no foul...

[FredScuttle]

55. Clarification

Eddie Izzard hates and mocks stupid Americans

[melody]

56. No, he hates and mocks *all* Americans ... he goes on and on about "Americans"

He makes no reservations or distinctions.

It sounds to me like he's as much a bigot about Americans as Andrew "Dice" Clay's character was about women.

Incidentally, thank you for your polite reservations. I wish the other poster could take a lesson.

[mitchum]

60. Izzard is also a middlebrow who thinks that his half-educated musings are wit

Sorry Eddie, you can flounce around and camp it up till the cowboys come home; that still doesn't make you Oscar Wilde

[melody]

66. Very well said n/t

[truebrit71]

70. Not sure that's where Eddie was aiming for...

.."half-educated musings"...let us all bow down to your superior knowledge...:eyes:

[mitchum]

87. That is indeed accurate; he comes off like a humanities major who dropped out...

after a year and a half. When the workload got too hard.
I have known many like that. Somewhat bright, but only half clever. And that's the secret of his success.

[iris5426]

67. I have to disgree, Eddie Izzard is one of the best comedians out there

His stand up is intelligent, which is a rarity. He may speak often of Americans being ignorant, but if you take a look at a good portion of the general population, they are. Statistics about what percentage of Americans can find things on maps (including the US if I remember correctly) and things like that just prove it, unfortunately. Eddie is fabulous, and sadly is just pointing out an unfortunate truth about a great portion of the American population, not ever saying that he "hates" us. He does do a bit about JFK's jelly donut gaffe, but I never felt like it was done in horribly poor taste - after all, JFK did actually say it.

Just my .02

[melody]

74. No, the general population is no more "ignorant" than any other population

They may know other things, but all people have the same capacity for knowledge. Only an elitist
would try to depict certain types of knowledge as preferable to others.

Izzard's comments about Americans are his own. He doesn't say "some Americans", he says all Americans.
So does George Carlin, but George is talking about his own people ... himself, in other words. Carlin
also takes on everyone else. Izzard's viewpoint seems locked on one scapegoat.

[iris5426]

82. First of all, he's a comedian, by definition most of what he says is not to be taken seriously

or personally. As an educated American, I take his comments as a generalization about that portion of the population I referenced before. I don't think it's elitist at all, it's the sad and simple truth that a great portion of Americans are not in any way well versed on the topics that Eddie covers in his stand up, such as world history. There are numerous studies that rank the US well below many other countries in the world on education. And yes, much of that is through no fault of the American children taking those tests, it's the fault of crap programs like no child left behind and the overall deterioration of our educational system in this country. But many of those children grow up and continue their lives in ignorance, never caring to learn the sorts of things he pokes fun at in his act. I agree that all people have the same capacity for knowledge. What I am saying (and what I think Eddie points to in his stand up) is that many Americans don't choose to utilize that capacity and instead remain blissfully ignorant of things like history that aren't part of the general knowledge that is needed to simply live and work. It's not that any type of knowledge is preferable to another, it's just that there seems to be a divide where people in this country, compared to those in the rest of the world, lack knowlege in those areas. No one is saying that anyone is a bad person, or not part of some elite group for not knowing those things, it's just being pointed out as a simple fact. If you watch his routines, you'll notice the audience laughs, rather than remaining silent or appearing offended.

I also think that you're wrong in saying he's locked on one scapegoat. In addition to saying anything about Americans as we've been discussing, he mocks the Italians, portraying all of them on scooters saying "Ciao" and regularly berates the French for being "fucking French." In my view it's all humor, and not meant to offend anyone, and certainly doesn't speak to him hating us (or the Italians or the French).

[melody]

84. He is a comedian however he's a political/social satirist

Limbaugh hides behind being a comedian, too, but I'm still offended.

I'm an educated American, too, however I know that (according to fairly complex academic studies), Americans
have an equal body of knowledge to any other group of people. Now what you consider to be "acceptable" knowledge
is relative. Too many progressives look to Europe as some kind of iconic example of what should be known, but
that's as much in error as those who look to the US as some iconic example. We're all just human. We're all just
primates. We have an equal number of problems.

When we stop scapegoating nations and start seeing that we all feed into the problem (globalism and corporate
sociopathy), maybe we'll get somewhere.

I've only heard Izzard go on at length about the French in glowing terms (usually by knocking us). I got up and
left the performance, I was so offended, and I was far from the only one.

Maybe I caught him on an off night. We're all human and make mistakes ... even Eddie Izzard.

[iris5426]

86. Agree to mostly disagree then :-) nt

[knight_of_the_star]

68. I wouldn't say hates Americans

More like pokes fun at just about anything under the sun.

[keith the dem]

59. Thank you for your comment

This is what I have heard from other Germans. just think, next January we will again have a President we can be proud of!

[I work for workers]

4. The jelly donut thing is true, but the Germans knew what he meant.

[Xipe Totec]

9. They ate him up

Germans love jelly donuts almost as much as they loved JFK.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Yes, That's What He Said

We asked my wife's German relatives about it - they said that was a great source of amusement at the time, the bakeries were doing fun things with JFK's picture and jelly donuts.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Not fluent, but ... a Berliner is a Berlin-style doughnut, just as ...

a wiener is a Wien- (or Vienna-) style sausage/wurst, and a frankfurter is a Frankfurt-style wurst. It can also be "shorthand" for any masculine noun from Berlin, including a man from Berlin.

[Fuzz]

11. This is correct. It's a style of pastry or a name or 'nickname' for the

pastry which was similar to a jelly donut. Those in attendance were amused, but did understand what he meant.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. Depends on the use of the indefinite article

"ein Berliner" may be a donut, but "Berliner" without the indefinite article "ein" can refer to a male who is from or resides in Berlin.

Unlike English, German usually doesn't use the indefinite article for nationality/place of origin of a person. So in English you can say "I am an American" but in German, it would be "Ich bin Amerikaner(in)". Therefore, it would be a natural mistake to make for an English speaker to include the indefinite article.

[Fredda Weinberg]

62. The rule is the same in English. I am Danish ... not I am a Danish n/t

[flowomo]

7. yes, a "Berliner" is a pastry

got the syntax wrong

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

8. Look here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner

[Muttocracy]

10. ah, that says urban legend!

[TahitiNut]

13. It's disappointing to see this old canard swallowed even today ... on DUof all places.

There was no misunderstanding whatsoever. Nobody from Berlin refers to a jelly donut as a 'Berliner' ... it's a Pfannkuchen.

[Cyrano]

15. No insult intended. Just a question about a language in which I am not fluent.

[CatWoman]

22. du bist ein grouch

:)

[TahitiNut]

31. Ich bin ein grouch? Nicht wahr! Nein! Ich bin ein Kerl Wellengang. Ich bin bescheiden, zu.

Und du bist mein Lieblings-Melone Öler. :loveya:

[CatWoman]

49. awwwwww

:)

:loveya:

[ben_meyers]

12. Hubert Horatio Hornblower ... Jimmy Carter

In a tribute to the recently deceased senator from Minnesota, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, the president misidentified him as "Hubert Horatio Hornblower. . . er, Humphrey."

I cringed at the time, it was on national TV.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/08/18/politics/main225899.shtml

[supernova]

14. Simple syntax mix up

To say "Ich bin EIN Berliner" means, I'm a pastry (called a Berliner, which you can still get today.)


But everybody knows what he really meant:

Ich bin Berliner. (I am a citizen/resident of Berlin)

[Aristus]

16. Yeah. Urban legend. Remember, the Germans applauded, rather than laughing.

In German grammar, "Ich bin ein Berliner" means "I am a jelly doughnut" only if you really ARE a jelly doughnut. "Ich bin Berliner" means "I am a citizen of Berlin". In context, though, what JFK was saying was "I am as one with the citizens of Berlin". And in that context, "Ich bin ein Berliner" is perfectly correct.

Urban legend, trying to make the man look foolish. You think the President of the United States didn't have someone there with him to make sure it was correct? Not so much anymore, with Shitferbrains polluting the White House; but back then? You bet.

[CatWoman]

25. my landlady in Germany told me it was true

and she was as German as one gets.

She lost her husband to the Russian front. That woman was amazing - the stories she had to tell.

However, I think it was about the pronunciation.

"BEAR-liner" is the way it should be pronounced, according to her.

I lived in Erlensee (Hanau), and she told me that the crowd also went wild when he visited and spoke at Fliegerherst (?) Kaserne, which was a stone's throw from her house.

[Aristus]

27. Well, there's no argument that "Ich bin ein Berliner" is what he said.

There's video and audio. People argue over whether it was a grammatical slip. And it wasn't. :-)

:hi: Cat! How are you doing, gorgeous?

[CatWoman]

28. *smooch*

:hi:

dealing with this wacky weather!!!

today was in the 70's -

yesterday was in the 30's-

rain tonight - tomorrow and the weekend is supposed to be in the 30's again!! :scared:

so many people at work are out sick!!

[Aristus]

29. Mmmmmm.

:hug:

We're getting weird weather here, too. But in the Pacific Northwest, the weather's ALWAYS weird.

[bluerum]

18. Jeebus. I feel old. I remember the headline. He definitley said he was a

jelly donut.

He meant to say "I am a Berliner." This is from the popular press of the day.

I of course defer to the real linguists in the crowd.

[Captain Angry]

19. How can this not have been posted yet?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5mu02xUgE4k

He's a fucking donut!

[madaboutharry]

21. Thank you so much

I needed a good laugh. :hi:

[Captain Angry]

26. Glad to help.

:-)

[Matariki]

36. A fawkin' donut!

brilliant. thanks!

Ich bin ein Frankfurter!

[backscatter712]

20. Not fluent, but know a little.

In German, when you want to say "I am from Berlin." you say "Ich bin Berliner"

A Berliner is a jelly-filled donut, so yes, switching from "Ich bin Berliner" to "Ich bin ein Berliner." can be interpreted to say "I am a jelly filled donut."

[lynne]

23. It was the donut version -

- A German friend of mine has a T-Shirt that has "I am a jelly filled donut" on it and the quote is attributed to JFK. Of course, I asked her about it and she explained that's what he really said. German is her native tongue, I have no reason to doubt her.

[youthere]

24. It translates word for word to "I am one Berliner"

can't vouch for syntax though.

[Matariki]

34. No it doesn't

ein is both 'one' or the indefinite article 'a'

[youthere]

39. you're right. ein=a eins=one

[Matariki]

35. sorry. i mean yeah it does, but it also mean 'a Berliner'

[roamer65]

30. Imagine if * tried to say it and like usual, goofed it up.

We'd be at war with Germany, again.

[Matariki]

33. This is what I've been told by Berliners

The proper grammar should have been "Ich bin Berliner" but no one thought he said he was a jelly donut.

There is a local Berlin pastry called *a* Berliner or *ein* Berliner so I guess it could be interpreted as a wordplay. Like if I said "I from Philly" and you could joke I was born out of cream cheese. Okay, bad analogy, but you get it...

[youthere]

40. Or cheesesteak.

[flygal]

38. I live in Germany

and most of Germany calls the jelly donuts something other than Berliners. Here in Bavaria they are Krapfen - sp. In Eastern parts they were something else. Most Germans tell me it's kind of a joke saying he said jelly donut - they knew what he meant. It's just like if cheesecake was called New Yorkers - it really didn't mean something else - just a play on words.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

41. mmmm... krapfen

I used to eat them for breakfast in Italy, with that custard or bavarian creme... nothing like the donuts I've had here.

[Orsino]

43. Yes, technically.

My German teachers in Germany loved this story. No, no Germans listening thought he was actually calling himself a doughnut; they probably just smiled at the clumsy grammar.

If you wanted to call yourself a doughnut in German, you'd use the phrasing Kennedy did.

[KharmaTrain]

44. Breakfast Anyone???

Have a Berliner...

:donut:

[Freddie Stubbs]

46. Yes, but the audience knew what he meant by the context

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

47. Ich bin ein Cruller!

nt

[DFW]

48. If you get technical, yes, he said he was a jelly-filled doughnut

I'm in Germany (have been for nearly 30 years), married to a German,
speak German at home etc etc. He should have left off the "ein."

Obviously, everybody knew what JFK meant, and of course they all had
a good time with the grammatical slip.

What Germans are really waiting for is for some high French official
to come visit and say, "Ich bin ein Pariser." In case there are some
non-German speakers out there, I'll tell you this much: "ein Pariser"
is NOT a pastry...............

[BurtWorm]

50. And Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down my underpants."

:patriot:

[truebrit71]

51. Yes, technically he did. See: Eddie Izzard.

:rofl:

[Cyrano]

53. Thank you DUers. I had no idea that so many of you spoke German.

And for any naysayers out there, the question in my OP was a serious question and was in no way intended to make fun of Kennedy.

JFK is one of my all-time heroes. The small-minded, horrendous man occupying the Oval Office today is an insult to the presidency, the country and the world.

[kineneb]

63. Genau. Viele hier sprechen Deutsch.

Got my degree minor in it.
And I am just old enough to remember the speech; I was 5 when he was assassinated. JFK was adored by the Germans. From what I gather, he had difficulty learning other languages, and had to work hard to get the phrase pronounced correctly.

The Berlin Airlift was one of the bright spots in Post-WWII US foreign policy. The current mess is embarrassing to me.

As a fan of things German, especially the food, jelly doughnuts have different names by region and by how they are prepared: "Krapfen" and "Pfannkuchen" are the most common. But no matter the name, they are still tasty.

...keep me away from the Konditoreien (German pastry shops)...burp!

[Javaman]

57. "donuts, is there nothing they can't do?" - Homer Simpson. nt

[JVS]

64. jelly donut is correct

[bean fidhleir]

75. Signs like that must have been very difficult for older people who

lived all their lives pre-Euro. The automatic interpretation is that they're selling 2 for a Mark, which would be a helluva good price! (When I lived there, the exchange rate was DM4.50 to the dollar.)

[bean fidhleir]

73. No, he didn't. He made EXACTLY the same mistake as someone who says, in English

"I am New Yorker" or even "I am a New Yorkie". That's the analogous mistake: completely trivial and with no possibility of honest misunderstanding.

[Bucky]

81. What most critics fail to understand is that JFK actually *was* a jelly donut.

Made entirely from reconstituted pastries, our 35th president stuggled to hide his peculiar origins in a Boston-area pastry shop. He only let the secret slip once in public, during, as you know, his trip to Berlin where he sought to reassure the besieged people of free Germany that he was literally one of them.


It was only years after his death that the truth came out about JFK (and also his brother Teddy, whom their mother Rose Kennedy often referred to as "an actual bun from my oven"). Obviously's Kennedy's survival in the Pacific theatre after the sinking of his PT boat is rendered all the more heroic in light of these revelations.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

85. I think the "bin" was superfluous.

"Ich ein Berliner" would have been a bit cleaner.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

88. I believe not. It's a *very* widely spread urban legend, though.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_berliner