During U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s visit to West Berlin on June 26, 1963, large-format English-language propaganda signs from the GDR were posted at Berlin’s border crossings, directed specifically at Western visitors. The signs called for the conclusion of a German peace treaty and the conversion of West Berlin into a ‘neutral and free city’—core demands of Soviet policy toward Germany. Kennedy’s visit, two years after the construction of the Wall in 1961, was a demonstrative response by the West to the ongoing pressure exerted by the GDR and the Soviet Union on the status of West Berlin.