We now know where Senator Barack Obama will be speaking in Berlin next Thursday. My source told me last night (and it has already been mentioned in Politico) that it will be at the Siegessäule (the Triumphal Column) on the Street of the 17th of June (Strasse des 17. Juni). Dedicated to Prussia’s victory over the Danes in 1864, the column was further enhanced (following victories over the Austrians and the French) by Friedrich Drake’s “Victory” statue (as seen in Wim Wenders’s Far Away, So Close!, a movie made even better by Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan in City of Angels--I’m kidding).

As my German friend notes, the Sieggesäule was “the venue of the Love parade of yesterday's fame. A telltale location, in that sense. He's going to stand on a rostrum there, probably facing the West so that the Brandenburg Gate will be visible as a backdrop, albeit one mile away.”