Barack Obama – Der schwarze Kennedy (English: Barack Obama – The black Kennedy) is a best-selling German-language biography of President of the United States Barack Obama by journalist Christoph von Marschall. The book was written by von Marschall while he spent much of 2007 travelling with Obama's presidential campaign as a reporter for the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. It covers Obama’s life from his childhood, through his college studies, his time as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois, and his political career including his 2008 presidential campaign. Von Marschall sums up his impressions of Obama by saying, “Seine Lebensgeschichte steht für den amerikanischen Traum.” (“His life story stands for the American Dream.”)

The book's title, which implies a comparison between Obama and John F. Kennedy, seemed gimmicky to some people when it was published in December 2007. However, in the following months many other Germans compared the two men and expressed hope that an Obama presidency would bring better relations between the United States and Europe. Kennedy is very popular in Germany, with many recalling his famous statement, “Ich bin ein Berliner" (“I am a Berliner”) – given in West Berlin in 1963 at the height of the Cold War. Steffen Hallaschka, a moderator for Germany's NDR TV, said: "Germans in the '60s projected a lot of hope and fantasies on Kennedy. This is what they are doing with Obama.".

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.