Barack Obama has had his plans to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin dashed by angry Germans, who say that former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler would never have allowed such a thing to happen.
The Democratic White House candidate had hoped to deliver a speech at the historic site during his tour of Europe and the Middle East at the end of July, but this latest hitch has meant a rethink is now necessary.
Herr Obama came in for strong criticism from German Nationalist Erich Frankensteiner, who said that the Democratic Party leader would not have been permitted within ten miles of the Brandenburg Gate if Hitler had been alive.
Herr Hitler didn't much like non-Aryans, and found the idea of any of them gathering around the Brandenburg Gate intolerable. At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Herr Hitler refused to applaud or shake the hand of US athlete Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals, because he wasn't of Aryan descent.
Mind you, neither Roosevelt nor Truman invited Owens to the White House.
Herr Frankensteiner went on to say that Herr Obama had not been involved with German reunification, and had no right taking advantage of such an auspicious event as the reunification for "purely electioneering purposes". Besides which, he said:
"Er ist einen Scwarzer!"
