The “Gold Lizzie” and Barack Obama

Obama is scheduled to appear at Berlin’s Victory Column this coming Thursday. Obama’s German opponents are resorting to political correctness in order to attack him–The Victory Column is the wrong place, they say. It’s a symbol from the Bismarck era and calls attention to the Franco-Prussian War which ended in Germany’s victory over France.

Angela Merkel, alone and against all dissent, frightened the not yet officially nominated Democratic presidential candidate away from the Brandenburg Gate which he had hoped to use as a backdrop for the only official speech of his European visit. Obama subsequently decided to choose the Victory Column, known to Berliners popularly as “Gold Lizzie,” from which the Brandenburg Gate is visible.

That’s bad, say the fanatics of political correctness in the CDU and FDP–That really won’t do, my dear Mr. Obama, because the column stands as a symbol for the establishment of the Second Reich in 1871, and we’re now friends with our former enemies Denmark, France and Austria against whom we fought during that war.

Lest Obama proceed from the false assumption that Germany may still be at war with those countries, he has been given his first tutoring in German history by those who are sufficiently politically correct. On top of this comes the argument that Adolf Hitler moved the column from its original place in front of the Reichstag to its current location on the Great Star at the Tiergarten, thereby designating it a symbol of the plans for a Greater Germany. So now we have it, Obama’s plan-B, which will now be carried out with no ifs, ands or buts is much worse than his original idea to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. This is supposed to be code for “we’re anti-Obama and pro-McCain” whereby one should simultaneously avoid exploiting Germany’s historic baggage.

Gold Lizzie* survived World War 2, wasn’t blown up according to French wishes after the war, and her restoration was completed in 1989, just in time for Germany’s re-unification. The 196-foot statue’s gold leaf exterior assures that the column is clearly visible, even in Berlin’s air.

Merkel’s “surprise and displeasure” as well as this latest griping about the Victory Column seem sort of provincial and hypocritical, but they will no doubt be helpful in ensuring that the original estimates of 100,000-plus spectators at the event will be substantially multiplied. There’s now talk of a million and perhaps more people who want to hear Obama. The dog days of summer will offer at least a halfway meaningful distraction beside Carla Bruni and Ingrid Betancourt in the form of an American presidential candidate visiting Germany, where he’s not even running for anything.

In Germany, Obama no longer has any opposition he can fight with and learn from with the possible exception of Angela Merkel.

Eight years ago, the German media fell all over itself portraying George W. Bush, scion of an “oil family,” as a foreign policy fool. Obama doesn’t have any more foreign policy experience than George W. had in the year 2000, but Obama is still the “It” boy and the “It” factor overrules all criteria of perception and observation, maybe even turning them upside down. Because of that, his keynote address, now advertised as “historic,” will nonetheless come from his advisors and speech writers and will bring forth nothing new or memorable. It’s also certain there will be an exorbitant media echo which, elevated from any reality, will be crawling with adulation and even sacred exaggeration.

The certainty of a breakthrough to a new world may become reality from hope alone. Obama can hardly do anything about that even if he wanted to. He has unleashed a placebo effect in many people who are indifferent to whatever he says or thinks or is able to do. The initials JFK and the words “black senator” and “black Kennedy” and “first colored President” will be merely inflationary come November when Americans go to the polls and make their decisions.

Of course it’s also possible that the expectations, especially the emotional expectations, will now rise so high that Obama will end up disappointing everyone when he speaks in the shadow of the Victory Column. It’s possible, but not probable.

Obama projects himself modestly on foreign policy, preferring to listen to what’s going on in the world during his foreign travels rather than talk about himself. The result of his first stop in Afghanistan where he thanked American troops for their courage and accomplishments came off as less than spectacular. The media world had little to say about it.

How long the “It” factor will stay with Obama is hard to say. His speech at the Victory Column won’t play a decisive role in how the American presidential election turns out. But it will give Germans, especially those among us who have anti-German feelings, those who rant about the Victory Column being the scene of a spectacle, it will give us the feeling that we Germans are actually someone in this world. Whenever a famous person comes into the village there are always a few yokels who complain that those big shots don’t understand anything about village ways, but who later practically explode with pride.

That’s probably how it will go in the German media, too. There’ll be casual euphoria and when the smoke clears maybe the dog days of summer will have passed. Everybody found it cool that people in the Love Parade danced around the Victory Column, but nobody scolded them for dancing around the wrong symbol. The world is covered with victory columns like the beach is covered with sand. The reasons why Obama shouldn’t be allowed to speak there don’t hold water. He personally shows no signs of the self-doubt we see in ourselves because of our history. And it’s not apparent that Obama wants to send the wrong signal or take the risk of being misunderstood by appearing with Gold Lizzie. Besides, Otto Everyman in Berlin sees the Gold Lizzie as a Berlin landmark that makes a wonderful orientation point for drivers. And the 17th of June Street over which Lizzie rules is surely not a bad neighborhood.

Even those who have no really great expectations for Obama’s speech can still enjoy it. And they can surely enjoy the spectacle of the analysis and commentary that will accompany it. Berlin is always worth the trip, the old saying goes, and maybe Obama and Gold Lizzie is a team worth seeing as well. In Cologne, Kennedy once said “Alaaf.”** Now Gold Lizzie is waiting for what Obama has to say. And everybody else is anxious to hear which German words he might use.

*Translator’s Note: The gilded statue atop the Victory Column in Berlin is a feminine figure known formally as Victoria, or Victory. Berliners have a penchant for attaching nicknames to such things and to them Victoria is popularly known as “Goldelse” which can be loosely translated as “Gold Lizzie” much as Henry Ford’s Model-T was known as a “Tin Lizzie” in the United States.

**Translator’s Note: Cologne dialect for “Hurray!”