JFK eulogy by Deputy Mayor Albertz on 25.Nov.1963

As an introduction, I'm an author currently working on a novel set in Berlin. The characters interact with real people and events, so accuracy with those "facts" is important.

At the moment I'm trying to locate the text of the eulogy given by Deputy Mayor Albertz on November 25th for John F Kennedy. I can translate it from the German if necessary, but an English version would be better/easier. Does anyone know of an archive or perhaps an English-language newspaper that might have reported it?

I appreciate any help I can get. Thanks in advance.

wood artist

November 25th what year? And what city is / was Albertz Deputy Mayor of? (I've never heard of that name in a Berlin mayoral context, so either it's an event which took place a long time ago or in a different city).

...just a guess: since JFK was assassinated on 23rd Nov 1963, 25th Nov probably refers to 1963 too.

Sorry, I don't know how toi find the eulogy though.

@KofferinBerlin
Google is your friend. Here's an excerpt from How Berlin mourned John F. Kennedy (written by a retired senior American diplomat):

I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. The speech was given on 25 November 1963, on the date of Kennedy's funeral in Washington D.C. Deputy Mayor Albertz was filling in for Willy Brandt who was in Washington attending the funeral itself. The speech was given from the Rathaus which served as "city hall" for West Berlin at the time, in front of the square that was subsequently named John F Kennedy Platz.

For Kay...thank you, but I already have searched that site. It has much useful informatiion, but nothing of what Albertz said that day. I have found the comments by Former chancellor Adenauer, chancellor Erhard, and the comments Willy Brandt made on the night Kennedy died, but I can't locate what Albertz said. It's the only piece remaining that I haven't found.

And thanks again to everyone for the efforts.

wood artist

The Rathaus is what is today called the Schöneberg Rathaus. If you try this link, there's the possibility to send them an email, and then the vague possibility that they have a copy of it in English or can advise you where to get hold of it - explain why you need it and they may well point you in the right direction.

http://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/buergerreferat/index.html

I'm sure you've done your research. The quote was just meant to show that even if one has never heard of Albertz (which was my case too until ten minutes ago) a Google search is all it takes to get at least some basic information.

That will be difficult, but perhaps not impossible. I would start here with contacting these people: http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/

@kay: I'm plenty aware of Google, but in this case the more information the OP provides the better; I wouldn't want to be going off on a wild-goose chase for the wrong Albertz on a different November 25th ;-). (Though I see the year is in the thread title; apologies - didn't notice it before).

The German Wikipedia has a fairly extensive page on him: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Albertz , although it doesn't mention the event in question).

I can't even find any specific mention of the event in question in German via Google (the nearest is here: "Im Rahmen der Trauerkundgebung für den ermordeten US-Präsidenten wird der Rudolph-Wilde-Platz (Schöneberg) in John-F.-Kennedy-Platz umbenannt.".

Another place to ask might be the Berlin SPD (contact form: http://www.berlinwahl.spd.de/servlet/PB/me...3342/index.html )

Thank you all very much. I will be following up on the suggestions you have made.

I'm wondering if there are any newspapers that have searchable archives. At the risk of assuming, I would suspect it's possible that the papers either carried the text of the speech, or perhaps at least some pieces of it. I have searched what I can, but so far without and luck. I would suspect, given the connection between Kennedy and West Berlin, that there would have been some coverage, but of course, I could be mistaken.

Thanks again to all of you. I'm sure I'll be back here with more questions, especially as I write the "more recent" chapters and move closer to today. Oh, does anyone have any knowledge of the Chapel of Reconcilliation, it plays and important role in the end of the book. I have explored the site for the Chapel, and of course the museum and preserved wall section, but anything else might be useful also.

Thanks.

wood artist

You might actually be able to find these newspapers in the US, depending on where you are located. About 10 years ago, I did a lot of research from German newspaper articles that were housed in the New York Public Library and got help from librarians both at Harvard and Yale in tracking down the text of West German political speeches between 1945-1989. I remember there was a microfiche roll at the NYPL that had all the copies of this publication called 'The Bulletin' which was an English language newsletter from the West German government that reprinted a ton of speeches and news.

I would suggest talking to a librarian in your local library about how you might get your hands on the text of this speech. A good librarian may be able to refer you to colleagues at other libraries with deep German language and culture collections, help you with ordering copies of newspapers through interlibrary loan, show you some databases for newspaper article searching that you might not be familiar with, and perhaps have access to books of speeches or have knowledge of JFK ephemera collections in various archives.

To generalize, library websites in Germany (and in the US, for that matter) tend only to scratch the surface of the collections they hold e.g. some libraries only have books printed after 1990 in an online catalog, so anything printed before 17 years ago is located in a card catalog (unbelievable). This is especially true for materials that might be located in archives, where only a very tiny percentage of primary sources have any mention on the web (archives don't have the money to digitize everything, though we're trying) though there are hundreds of indexes to those sources in filing cabinets in the reading rooms of those archives.

Some useful catalogs of books at German libraries which might help you find printed copies of speeches:
www.kobv.de (union catalog for Brandenburg and Berlin)
www.kvk.de (union catalog for Germany, Austria, Switzerland - the interface is painfully bad but the search is useful)
www.zdb.de (shows which libraries in Germany have various newspapers, magazines and journals)