Pizzas galore!

It is not a popular message in Germany but the crowd heard what it wanted to hear: that the difficult, sometimes humiliating relationship with George Bush administration would be over in less than 200 days. Some German websites even have a count-down ticker. As for American flags, they are in favour again, semaphoring the rally in the evening sunshine.

The substance of the speech was somewhat thin - it was, in the end, merely an appeal to work more closely together - but like all good sermons it had a strong undertone of repentance.

"I know my country has not perfected itself," said Mr Obama, "We've made our share of mistakes and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions."

"Too true ," said Bernd Brueggemann, a 40 year old teacher, "I just hope they pay attention at home." He gestured towards the US network camera teams who have been chaperoning the candidate. The Senator has just about maintained the pretence of being on a fact-finding rather than election tour. He was presenting himself as the listening President of the future. Partnership, he said, "requires allies who listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other".

Times Archive, 1963: Berlin goes wild over Mr Kennedy

'Today, in the world of freedom', he declared, 'the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner'

• Removing doubts

• Mr. Khrushchev loses Berlin contest

Related Links

• Obama: feted abroad but facing a fight at home

• Obama heckled at Western Wall

• Obama in Israel balancing act

Multimedia

• Obama on tour

• Can Obama's speech rival JFK or Reagan?

That seems to have struck the right note with both Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "It was a very open conversation that didn't just scrape the surface," said government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm, cloudily. They talked apparently about the Middle East, about Iran, about global warming and about free trade. It is the last theme that is particularly nagging the Chancellor: a President Obama could, the Merkel team fear, turn out to be a protectionist if America slides towards recession. The German economy too is slowing down - and Ms Merkel has a general election to win next year. The body language was good except, as one observer noted, Mr Obama draped his arm over the Chancellor's shoulder. Ms Merkel does not like that.

The Chancellor watched the speech from the quiet of a hotel room in Bayreuth; her summer holiday began the moment that Mr Obama left her office at noon and she hastened to southern Germany for the beginning of the annual Wagner festival. On television, she will have heard a distinctly unoperatic performance from Mr Obama; serious in its mission to revive the transatlantic relationship but lacking great inspiration. It did make clear to American audiences one thing: that a President Obama would be committed to polishing up the tarnished image of America abroad. Television pictures of tens of thousands of cheering Germans may have well have made that point.

So far the tour has been without any serious gaffe, if only because Mr Obama has been extremely cautious. This speech was no exception. "Messiah or seducer?," asked the cover of Stern magazine this week, but neither quality was really on display at the rally. The crowd was enthralled by the moment, by the sense as commentator Kurt Kister put it, that the "good American" was making a public appearance again. The Bush years have been hard on German self-esteem. When the then chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opposed the Iraq war, he was treated like a classroom dunce and the government was publicly snubbed;Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went out of his way to avoid shaking the hand of German ministers. Mr Obama by contrast appeared to be promising a partnership of equals. "America has no better partner than Europe."

But it was certainly not the coming of the Messiah and if there was seduction it was between consenting adults. Some would have preferred a a speech that took more risks.

"I was there when Kennedy came to West Berlin, this was a bit more artificial, I mean it's easier nowadays to make a speech like this," says Rainer Cornelsen, a 67 year old businessman, "You don't need to be particularly brave. But he has something of the Kennedy freshness." Yet the Kennedy visit has been mythologised. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was no great fan describing him as a "cross between a junior naval officer and a Roman Catholic boy scout." And when Ronald Reagan in 1987 proclaimed, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!" he was widely dismissed in Germany as naive or reckless. Later the myth-making machine cranked into action however and both presidents came to be hailed as prophets.

Perhaps, in time, a similar legend will be spun out of Mr Obama's speech. But the impression was rather more modest. In so far as it addressed the Europeans at all, it was the speech of a man trying very hard to be liked; a pleasant change but stopping somewhat short of charismatic leadership.

Times Recommends

• UN may halt 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
• Gas deal on hold, but Ukraine may pay in the end