43 48 REAGAN, Ronald. Remarks of the President at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. Bitburg Air Base, Germany, May 5, 1985. Three sheets, measuring 8-1/2 by 14 inches, printing on recto. $15,000 “Everywhere Here Are Memories—Pulling Us, Touching Us, Making Us Understand That They Can Never Be Erased”: Reagan’s Speech At Bergen-Belsen, With References To Anne Frank, Inscribed By Him Press release of President’s Reagan’s speech at his historic visit to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, inscribed, “This for you. Ronald Reagan.” “Ronald Reagan delivered his greatest speech at BergenBelsen in Germany. I am tempted to call it his only great speech, imbued with genuine rather than staged emotion…A freak convergence of factors—historical, religious, political and personal—precipitated the old actor onto a stage where he delivered the performance of his life. He not only moved an international audience of millions, but was moved himself to the point of catharsis…Chancellor Hemut Kohl had invited Reagan to join him at a ceremony [at a small military cemetery at Bitburg, which was later revealed to contain some 50 graves of Waffen—SS soldiers, as well as other Nazi soldiers] Around the world, Jews rose in horrified protest…A hasty announcement [was made] that the president would speak at Bergen-Belsen before going on to Bitburg…Ken Khachigian, a former Reagan speechwriter, was called back to help the president address the crisis. It was vital that whatever was said at Bergen-Belsen should resolve the moral issues at hand…Khachigian was surprised at the intensity of the president’s emotions as they discussed the speech.… ’Never again,’ Reagan kept saying, and Khachigian made a note to include the leitmotif ‘never’ in his draft… On the day itself, Reagan…was listened to in absolute silence. His every sigh was audible in the misty air, as was the surrounding rustle of the woods. … During this litany, the president began to lose control. His voice husked on every verb, and he fought tears throughout a peroration on the camp’s most famous victim, Anne Frank. But he held himself stiffly to the end, and a conductor could not have better timed the agogic beat before his final ‘Never again.’ There was no applause as Reagan stepped off the monument and returned to his seat” (Edmund Morris). With a page of typed excerpts from German press reactions to Reagan’s speech, dated May 7, attached at the rear. Fine condition.
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