SECRETARY KERRY: Toria, thank you very much. Welcome, everybody, to the Ben Franklin Room of the State Department. Friends from Germany and intrepid leader Fred Kempe, Bill Harrop, and all the generous contributors to the Diplomacy Center, as well as to our brilliant seventh and eighth floors, we are deeply appreciative for your generosity. And special guests, everybody – it is really wonderful to see you here.

This afternoon, I want to joint Assistant Secretary Nuland in welcoming our very distinguished and special guest, President Joachim Gauck. I also thank all of you for joining us here today as we officially take into the Department of State a very tangible – and if you’ve seen it downstairs; I hope you had a chance to, and that’s why we’re running a little bit late. I apologize; we were down there admiring the section of the wall. But it is a very large piece of history, and such relics of the past are obviously priceless. Speaking for myself, I’d much rather view one than be one. (Laughter.)

My friends, in receiving this unique – this unique symbol and memorial of the wall itself, the Berlin Wall, we at the same time pay tribute to an indelible partnership between two great countries. And inevitably, we think back to an era when an event like this was literally beyond belief.

We recognize now even more than we did in 1961 that the building of the Berlin Wall was both an act of hostility as well as a humiliating admission of defeat. From ancient Rome to medieval China, we know of civilizations erecting barriers to keep adversaries out, but never before had a government found it so necessary to brick their citizens in.

Almost 26 years have now passed since the wall was brought down by courageous people on both sides. Today, pieces of the barrier can be found in every corner of the globe, from Australia and Argentina to Canada and South Korea. This Department is blessed to have a place, the U.S. Diplomacy Center, where we are able to receive and display historic gifts. And I want to join Toria in really thanking personally and with deepest appreciation all those of you, whether individuals or corporate sponsors, who are supporting the center now with your contributions. And I’m not saying that to encourage you to give more – though, obviously, that is always welcome. But I just want to say thank you profoundly, without asking for the more.

It’s only because of you that we are able to have events like this, and to receive on behalf of the department but also on behalf of our country a segment of the wall personally signed, as Toria just said to you, by those individuals who played key diplomatic roles in helping to bring it to rubble. These bold leaders include United States President George H. W. Bush, Soviet Premier Gorbachev, German Chancellors Kohl and Merkel, Polish President Walesa, Lech Walesa, and former U.S. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.

Now, we’re particularly pleased that Brent was able to join us here today. And I asked him when he was looking at the wall if it brought back a few shivers, and he said, “Yes, absolutely.”

I know some of you have heard – and maybe you’ve heard it too often – about the time that I spent in Berlin, a short time as a young kid. And my father was in the Foreign Service there. He was serving as the legal advisor to the high commissioner of Germany, James Conant. And I used to – I was about 12 years old, 13 years old, and I loved riding my bike. I did not fall and break my leg back then. (Laughter.) And I rode it all along the lakes, around the lakes, up and down the Kurfurstendamm. I remember riding past the Reichstag all burned out, riding back by the Fuhrer’s bunker that had been blown up, and the Brandenburg Gate, and all of these great memories of that time.

And I was curious. And one day I exercised the privilege of a diplomatic passport and I rode through the checkpoint into East Berlin. And though still a child, I really could tell immediately – and I found it very foreboding – the difference between the east and the west. The east was drabber, darker; the clothes were darker. There were fewer cars. There was a grayness. And I felt this sense of something that actually frightened me, and I turned around pretty quickly and went back. I didn’t linger long.

I had the choice of going back. A lot of people, obviously, did not have that choice. And many people lost their lives trying to exercise it later on. Even as I was pedaling around East Berlin that afternoon, families like that of Joachim Gauck were living outside the circle of freedom.

In fact, the future president’s father was a prisoner in a Soviet gulag. That searing experience helped to make of his son a true democratic champion, a gutsy activist, and a leader referred to in the files of the East German secret police as “an incorrigible anti-communist.” The highest praise indeed.

(In German/via interpreter) President, thank you that you have come here. Your presence here is not just – shows that will it not only have a geopolitical game that was being played; it was also a major tragedy at a time where many people who loved peace and freedom, and many menschen were – many people had to live and were silenced. Nobody is going to know better how many good and courageous people died during the effort to fly across the Berlin Wall.

Thank you for being here. Your presence brings home to us the fact that the Cold War was not some sort of a geopolitical game. It was a terrible human tragedy in which millions of freedom-loving people were persecuted, imprisoned, and forcibly silenced for the better part of a lifetime. No one will ever know for certain exactly how many good and brave people perished while trying to get over or through the Berlin Wall – the actual number.

But today, as we look back almost a quarter of a century after German reunification, we can take unbelievable pride in the relationship between our two nations which had forged through decades a healing and a building. To the United States, Germany is a trusted ally, a partner, and a friend. And to those of us here today, it is a privilege and a pleasure to welcome the revered president of our great ally Germany, Joachim Gauck. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT GAUCK: (Via interpreter) Secretary of State, General Scowcroft, Mr. Kempe, ladies and gentlemen. When I signed my name on this signature segment of the Berlin Wall, that happened to be in 2010, because I was one of the citizens (inaudible). I didn’t hold a high political office at the time, but I was one of those activists who participated in helping the people stand up and fight for their freedom.

So when I signed my name on this segment of the Berlin Wall, I didn’t even dream – couldn’t even dream of me being here together with you at this very same segment of the Berlin Wall. And I was amazed to see the names of the various politicians – great names and great personalities and seeing my name tiny besides them.

And I asked myself, “Oh God, how” – “Gosh, how could this happen?” But it is true; it has come true. It is a symbol of the fact that the history of liberty is one that is ever so difficult to predict very often, and I think this segment of the wall is proof of that. Often the history of liberty is also a history of defeats that one has suffered. Dear Mr. Kerry, Secretary, you shared with us the memories you had and have of your time in Berlin.

When I was 13 years old, one of those defeats occurred that I referred to earlier in my East German home – country. Thousands and thousands of people stood up to demonstrate peacefully for freedom and unity; that was on the 17th July 1953. And we were there. The SED dictatorship, with the help of Soviet tanks, brought down that popular uprising. And there are other defeats that I could refer to. 1965 – ’56, then 1956 in Hungary – a revolution that had already been won is being destroyed by Soviet tanks. In 1968 the attempt that was undertaken to establish a democratic socialism in Prague, it’s being defeated and brought to its knees with the help of Soviet tanks. And the history of liberty – no, it’s not an uninterrupted story of victory of the popular movements that stand up for freedom and liberty.

The more do we value events where human beings have stopped feeling powerless and have stood up to make come true their desire for freedom and democracy. It is so good to be here today, almost at the end of my visit, really, which has been filled – rather my heart is filled with gratitude towards the Americans who, over such a long period of time, have stood up to defend and fight for Germany’s unity. It’s wonderful to be here, look at this massive symbol of massive suppression, and to see it as something that has been consigned to the past. Those who have the power to set up this wall and those who have the power to bring it down.

But those who have the power of keeping under their cudgel vast (inaudible) of the population, they did not remain victorious at the end of the day. They were overcome through peaceful demonstrations and actions based on the yearning for peace and freedom.

First we’ve come to see that vast parts of Europe – amongst them parts of eastern Europe – without having expressly referred to documents of the United States of America or free countries in the world, but they have taken the values defined by these free societies as their own. Also in the well-behaved East Germany, people stood up against their oppressors and they were successful in that attempt for the very first time in Germany’s national history. The fact that the oppressed have stood up has been victorious. As a consequence, we’ve called the events of the autumn of 1968 a peaceful revolution.

Now, why am I mentioning this during my visit here? Why am I bringing this up? Because it’s obvious: The unity we have achieved is a consequence of the revolution of the time. I was referring to the wall that we still remember, and the segment of which is justifiably consigned to be a part of this museum has been set up there, remind us time and again of the fact that something has to happen before walls can be brought down. People have to stand up. Where liberty reigns, walls will be brought down. And that is my wish – that the people who come here to visit this impressive building embodying American diplomacy will be reminded of the limits of what we can achieve, of the defeats that we sometimes have to suffer and to accept, and of the victories that freedom and people who stood up for freedom have gained.

In all those places where people have remembered the Berlin Wall, in all those places, something has been set up to remind us of a very important thing – not to think in small-minded terms of the limitations that restrict our movements but to share that big belief that we can actually change things. It is “We the people,” and we are the people – (in German). That is what people remember to the very day, and this – (in German) – we are the people brings to mind another expression that we were reminded of when we paid a visit to Philadelphia yesterday and the day before yesterday. “We the people” is what we’re reminded of when we hear “We are the people.” Those are the wonderful words with which we are introduced to your Constitution. “We the people” constitutes a message that will be victorious in years and years to come. There is no alternative. People cannot be – at the end of the day be happy without adhering to the values which we believe to be universal – that is the rule of law and respect for the dignity of man.

And this is why I want to use this opportunity to once again express my gratitude to all those in America who in the darkest hours of German history stood by us. When you fought Nazi Germany and overcame Nazi Germany, you helped us overcome ourselves and overcome these people.

Again, I would like to seize this moment to once again express my gratitude to all those people from the United States of America who supported – realized, welcomed, and supported the desire expressed by the German people to live in one country. Here and now I want to name the people – amongst them James Baker, who happened to assist the then-President George W. Bush senior, expressed a clear yes towards German unification and to stand up also in support of that desire with regard to the other allies. We will never forget this. And this is why we always feel, although we are far from our home shores, we always feel at home here in the United States of America.

This brings me back to the relic of the Cold War, and what I would wish to see is young diplomats standing there, gazing at that segment of the wall, feeling encouraged when looking at this segment to believe in what can be achieved if people bid farewell to their feeling of powerlessness and consider themselves responsible citizens, and it is in that spirit that I express my gratitude to the United States of America and its people. (Applause.)