Ich Bin Ein Berliner - Jelly Doughnut Misconception

Jelly Doughnut Misconception

There is a misconception that Kennedy made a risible error by saying Ich bin ein Berliner (emphasis added): the claim is made that Kennedy referred to himself not as a "citizen of Berlin" but as a "jelly doughnut", known in Berlin as a "Pfannkuchen" but elsewhere as "Berliner". Kennedy should, supposedly, have said Ich bin Berliner to mean "I am a person from Berlin", and so adding the indefinite article ein to his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus, "I am a jelly doughnut". However, while the indefinite article ein is omitted when speaking of an individual's profession or residence, it is still necessary when speaking in a figurative sense as Kennedy did. Since the President was not literally from Berlin but only declaring his solidarity with its citizens, "Ich bin ein Berliner" was correct.

The origin of the misconception is obscure. An early sighting occurred in volume 55 of Management Review (1966):

John F. Kennedy's famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" created confused reactions among his German audience. What he meant, of course, was "I am a citizen of Berlin". What he actually said came closer to "I am a doughnut". Because the translation followed the English construction word for word, it included the article "ein" for "a". "Ein berliner," in German, is a type of cruller - a flat doughnut.

Another one appears in Len Deighton's spy novel Berlin Game, published in 1983, which contains the following passage, spoken by Bernard Samson:

'Ich bin ein Berliner,' I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts.

In Deighton's novel, Samson is an unreliable narrator and his words cannot necessarily be taken at face value. However The New York Times review of Deighton's novel appeared to treat Samson's remark as factual, and added the detail that Kennedy's audience found his remark funny:

Here is where President Kennedy announced, Ich bin ein Berliner, and thereby amused the city's populace because in the local parlance a Berliner is a doughnut.

Four years later it found its way into a New York Times op-ed:

It's worth recalling, again, President John F. Kennedy's use of a German phrase while standing before the Berlin Wall. It would be great, his wordsmiths thought, for him to declare himself a symbolic citizen of Berlin. Hence, Ich bin ein Berliner. What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as 'Berliners.' They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, "I am a jelly-filled doughnut." —William J. Miller, "I Am a Jelly-Filled Doughnut", The New York Times

The doughnut claim has since been repeated by media such as the BBC (by Alistair Cooke in his Letter from America program), The Guardian, MSNBC, CNN, Time magazine, and The New York Times; mentioned in several books about Germany written by English-speaking authors, including Norman Davies and Kenneth C. Davis; and used in the manual for the Speech Synthesis Markup Language.