Over seven decades after the dedication of the Freedom Bell, and three decades after the end of the Cold War, it is sometimes easy to forget the power of the symbols with which it was originally associated. It is also important to remember that symbols are not simply misleading representations of the past. They are ways of sorting and arranging our cultural associations and ultimately our memories. The Freedom Bell was conceived in the early days of the Cold War as an expression of solidarity and shared democratic values between the people of the United States and the people of (West) Berlin in the wake of the Soviet blockade and Airlift. Along with the Luftbrückendenkmal erected in 1951, it also plays an important role as one of the first physical expressions of what was later described as “America’s Berlin” during the “heroic phase” of the Cold War before the early 1960s. Other architectural examples are for instance the Kongresshalle, the Amerika-Haus, the Ford-Bau at the
Freie Universität, or the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek.
All the ceremonies surrounding the Freedom Bell, from its inception to its dedication, included powerful symbolic elements that evoked shared democratic values and an emerging special connection between the United States and the “outpost of freedom.” Typical in this respect was Maxwell Taylor’s “vow of freedom,” which in later years was repeated by the radio station RIAS every Sunday at noon, along with a tolling of the bell. The bell thus came to represent not only the shared values of Americans and Germans but also the freedom-loving, anti-totalitarian, democratic spirit of West Berliners and, by extension, Germans in general after the horrors of National Socialist tyranny and the looming presence of Soviet Communism. It is significant that visiting dignitaries in West Berlin were usually presented small porcelain replicas of the Freedom Bell as symbols of the half-city’s defiant democratic spirit.
At the same time that the Freedom Bell had a powerful symbolic significance, it also served very useful political purposes in the early 1950s, both for its American and German supporters. Ernst Reuter, Willy Brandt and other political allies were justifiably concerned that, with the pressures of the Korean War and global preoccupations in general, Americans might well forget about West Berlin in the aftermath of the successful Airlift. (Indeed, throughout the Cold War the leading politicians of West Berlin were almost always worried that the US would “forget” about the city, or leave it in the lurch.) Thus a campaign of psychological and political mobilization in both countries was politically helpful to them as a reminder to the Americans of their long-term responsibilities in the heart of Europe. Powerful political symbols like the Freedom Bell were essential aspects of that mobilization.
