Kennedy-Statue

The John F. Kennedy monument stands in Bonn’s Plittersdorf district, on the corner of Godesberger Allee and Kennedyallee. It is a life-size stone statue erected in 1989 to honour the former US president. The only post-war statue in Bonn dedicated to a single politician, it faces west across the junction towards the Venusberg hill.

Kennedy visited Bonn for three days in June 1963 at the invitation of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The city welcomed him with a speech from the Rathaus steps attended by 25,000 people. His words included the line that Bonn was ‘the capital of the free world’. The sculptor team of Herm-Jörg Barner and Marlene Dammin created the statue, commissioned by architects Dirk Denninger and Dorothee Fiedler-Denninger.

The figure shows Kennedy in suit, shirt, tie and shoes, arms crossed, standing on a low plinth in a small flower bed. Nearby is a copy of the historic Hochkreuz wayside cross. A Stadtbahn stop called Hochkreuz/Deutsches Museum Bonn lies about 25 metres away, linking the area to central Bonn.