During U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Germany in June 1963, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets and squares along the travel route. The photograph shows a child amid the densely packed crowd and conveys the spontaneous enthusiasm with which the West German population received Kennedy. The background of the visit was the Cold War and the Berlin Wall, which had stood since 1961; Kennedy’s journey was regarded as a symbol of American solidarity with the Federal Republic and West Berlin.