Berliners see Clinton as a dream come true

'I CRIED at Clinton's words,' said Helga Diehr, a 62-year-old west Berliner, wearing a baseball cap and carrying a US flag. 'Sometimes I still cannot believe that we are once again united. I fear I might wake up one day and discover that it was all a dream.'

Bill Clinton yesterday became the eighth US president since the Second World War to visit Berlin. He arrived on the day Germany's constitutional court said its troops could serve - and fight - abroad once again.

Unlike President Kennedy - or any of the six other US presidents who visited the city before the collapse of the Berlin Wall - President Clinton was able to cap his address with the words: 'Berlin ist frei] - Berlin is free]'

Like his Democratic predecessor and confessed role model, Mr Clinton spoke German at key moments. 'Amerika steht auf Ihrer Seite jetzt und fur immer (America stands by your side now and for ever),' he told a jubilant crowd at the city's Brandenburg Gate.

When historians come to evaluate the significance of yesterday's speech, they may well judge it falls short of Kennedy's classic 'Ich bin ein Berliner' address in 1963, two years after the building of the Wall. But the poignancy of the moment was understood by the huge crowd, not yet totally blase about the astonishing way the city lost - and then regained - its freedom and unity.

Mr Clinton became the first US president to cross the now-defunct border into what was the east. His walk through the Brandenburg Gate with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and their respective wives, had a surreal quality. But for many watching, it recalled the joyous scenes of November 1989 when the Wall was toppled and the city's people could finally move freely.

Mr Clinton praised the courage of hundreds of thousands of east Germans whose protests helped to defeat the Communist regime in 1989, and saluted those who, in 1953, tried to defy Soviet tanks by hurling stones. He also urged the city to look forward - to assume its rightful place at the centre of a reunited Europe: 'You found the courage to endure . . . to tear down walls. Now you must find the courage to build . . . The Berlin Wall is gone . . . What will we build in its place? Standing here today, we can see the answer.'

His appeal echoed his entreaties to Chancellor Kohl on Monday for Germany to take on more global responsibilities, to assume more of a leadership role in the European Union and to partner the US in its drive to incorporate the former Communist countries of the east into western structures.

Just a few hours before he was due to speak, Germany's constitutional court ruled that the country's armed forces could in future participate in United Nations military missions abroad. At a press conference before his speech, Mr Clinton said he was 'completely comfortable' with the prospect of German forces assuming a more active role, heaping praise on the country's democratic credentials since the Second World War and declaring it a 'standard-setter' for 'humane conduct'.

It was an affirmation of faith that even Chancellor Kohl felt he had to qualify. 'It is not as though a new mood has broken out that says 'Germans to the front]' ' Mr Kohl explained. 'When and where Germany gets involved will be decided in Germany . . . on a case-by-case basis.'

'We cannot be forever looking backwards,' said an ecstatic Isabel Rose, an 18-year-old student who lapped up Mr Clinton's every word. 'We have got to look to the future. We have got to be proud of who we are and what we are. Mr Clinton has encouraged us to take the first step.'

Further reports, page 8

Leading article, page 13

(Photograph omitted)