Download or read book A City Torn Apart written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A City Torn Apart Building of the Berlin Wall written by Central Intelligence Agency and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Built in 1791, standing 85 feet high, 215 feet long and 36 feet wide, this former city gate is one of the most iconic symbols of Berlin and Germany. Throughout its existence it has served as a visual representation of various political ideologies, ranging from Prussia's imperialism to East Germany's communism. It was closed by the East Germans on 14 August 1961 in a response to West Berliners' demonstration against the building of the wall dividing their city into East and West. It remained closed until 22 December 1989. Its design is based upon the gate way to the Propylaea, the entry into the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. It has 12 Doric columns, six to a side, forming five passageways. The central archway is crowned by the Quadriga, a statue consisting of a four horse chariot driven by Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. After Napoleon's defeat, the Quadriga was returned to Berlin and the wreath of oak leaves on Victoria was replaced with the new symbol of Prussia, the Iron Cross.
Download or read book A City Torn Apart written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Collapse written by Mary Sarotte and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
Download or read book Tunnel 29 written by Helena Merriman and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in. In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children—all willing to risk everything to escape. From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of this most remarkable Cold War rescue mission. Drawing on interviews with the survivors and Stasi files, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the Stasi spy who threatened the whole enterprise, and the love story that became its surprising epilogue. Tunnel 29 was also the first made-for-TV event of its kind; it was funded by NBC, who wanted to film an escape in real time. Their documentary—which was nearly blocked from airing by the Kennedy administration, which wanted to control the media during the Cold War—revolutionized TV journalism. Ultimately, Tunnel 29 is a success story about freedom: the valiant citizens risking everything to win it back, and the larger world rooting for them to triumph.
Download or read book Berlin Wall written by Christine Zuchora-Walske and published by ABDO Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title examines an important historic event--the Berlin Wall's division of the city of Berlin, Germany, from the building of the wall to its destruction. Easy-to-read, compelling text explores why the wall was built, what it was like living in a divided city, and why the wall was torn down. Also discussed is the political context behind the wall, including the events in Germany following World War II and the tensions between capitalism and communism during the Cold War. Features include a table of contents, glossary, selected bibliography, Web sites, source notes, and an index, plus a timeline and essential facts. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
Download or read book The Berlin Wall written by Frederick Taylor and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The appearance of a hastily-constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse. This threat would vanish only when the very people the Wall had been built to imprison, breached it on the historic night of 9 November 1989. Frederick Taylor's eagerly awaited new book reveals the strange and chilling story of how the initial barrier system was conceived, then systematically extended, adapted and strengthened over almost thirty years. Patrolled by vicious dogs and by guards on shoot-to-kill orders, the Wall, with its more than 300 towers, became a wired and lethally booby-trapped monument to a world torn apart by fiercely antagonistic ideologies. The Wall had tragic consequences in personal and political terms, affecting the lives of Germans and non-Germans alike in a myriad of cruel, inhuman and occasionally absurd ways. The Berlin Wall is the definitive account of a divided city and its people.
Download or read book The Post War Division of Germany and the Construction of the Berlin Wall written by Charles River Editors and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures*Covers the history of Berlin and Germany from the end of World War II through the 1960s*Discusses some of the famous escape attempts and the way East Germany tried to prevent them*Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading*Includes a table of contents“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an 'Iron Curtain' has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” – Winston Churchill, 1946 “Here in Berlin, one cannot help being aware that you are the hub around which turns the wheel of history. ... If ever there were a people who should be constantly sensitive to their destiny, the people of Berlin, East and West, should be they.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. In the wake of World War II, the European continent was devastated, and the conflict left the Soviet Union and the United States as uncontested superpowers. This ushered in over 45 years of the Cold War, and a political alignment of Western democracies against the Communist Soviet bloc that produced conflicts pitting allies on each sides fighting, even as the American and Soviet militaries never engaged each other. Though it never got “hot,” the Cold War was a tense era until the dissolution of the USSR, and nothing symbolized the split more than the Berlin Wall, which literally divided the city. Berlin had been a flashpoint even before World War II ended, and the city was occupied by the different Allies even as the close of the war turned them into adversaries. After the Soviets' blockade of West Berlin was prevented by the Berlin Airlift, the Eastern Bloc and the Western powers continued to control different sections of the city, and by the 1960s, East Germany was pushing for a solution to the problem of an enclave of freedom within its borders. West Berlin was a haven for highly-educated East Germans who wanted freedom and a better life in the West, and this “brain drain” was threatening the survival of the East German economy. In order to stop this, access to the West through West Berlin had to be cut off, so in August 1961, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what would become known as the Berlin Wall. The wall, begun on Sunday August 13, would eventually surround the city, in spite of global condemnation, and the Berlin Wall itself would become the symbol for Communist repression in the Eastern Bloc. It also ended Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers (the Soviets, the Americans, the United Kingdom, and France) and the two German states. The wall would serve as a perfect photo-opportunity for two presidents (Kennedy and Reagan) to hammer the Soviet Communists and their repression, but the Berlin Wall would stand for nearly 30 years, isolating the East from the West. It is estimated about 200 people would die trying to cross the wall to defect to the West. The Post-War Division of Germany and the Construction of the Berlin Wall: The History of the Cold War Split Between East and West looks at the history that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the manner in which it was built. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the construction of the Berlin Wall like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book Tear Down this Wall written by Ronald Reagan and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a unique and substantive tribute to Ronald Reagan, one of the most important figures in U.S. and world history. It includes Reagan’s most trenchant speeches as President (Evil Empire, Tear down this Wall, remarks commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, his farewell to the nation on leaving the Presidency); essential speeches delivered before holding the Office of President (Rendezvous with Destiny); all-but-impossible-to-find policy articles written by Reagan for National Review; and words of praise – old as well as new following Reagan’s death – from William F. Buckley Jr., Margaret Thatcher, Robert Bork, Paul Johnson, Edwin Meese III, Tom Wolfe, and others.
Download or read book Forty Autumns written by Nina Willner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this illuminating and deeply moving memoir, a former American military intelligence officer goes beyond traditional Cold War espionage tales to tell the true story of her family—of five women separated by the Iron Curtain for more than forty years, and their miraculous reunion after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Forty Autumns makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two. At twenty, Hanna escaped from East to West Germany. But the price of freedom—leaving behind her parents, eight siblings, and family home—was heartbreaking. Uprooted, Hanna eventually moved to America, where she settled down with her husband and had children of her own. Growing up near Washington, D.C., Hanna’s daughter, Nina Willner became the first female Army Intelligence Officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Though only a few miles separated American Nina and her German relatives—grandmother Oma, Aunt Heidi, and cousin, Cordula, a member of the East German Olympic training team—a bitter political war kept them apart. In Forty Autumns, Nina recounts her family’s story—five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer, running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk. A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation, and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love—of five women whose spirits could not be broken, and who fought to preserve what matters most: family. Forty Autumns is illustrated with dozens of black-and-white and color photographs.
Download or read book Checkpoint Charlie written by Iain MacGregor and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'As convoluted and deadly as the plot of a novel by John le Carre, but all too real' Daily Mail, Must Reads 'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West divide that poisoned Europe for almost half a century, [MacGregor] has made an important contribution to the history of our times' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Captures brilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the wall - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited' Jon Snow A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the city throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union that contains never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.
Download or read book Berlin Divided City 1945 1989 written by Philip Broadbent and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great deal of attention continues to focus on Berlin’s cultural and political landscape after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but as yet, no single volume looks at the divided city through an interdisciplinary analysis. This volume examines how the city was conceived, perceived, and represented during the four decades preceding reunification and thereby offers a unique perspective on divided Berlin’s identities. German historians, art historians, architectural historians, and literary and cultural studies scholars explore the divisions and antagonisms that defined East and West Berlin; and by tracing the little studied similarities and extensive exchanges that occurred despite the presence of the Berlin Wall, they present an indispensible study on the politics and culture of the Cold War.
Download or read book The Berlin Wall written by Cindy Mur and published by Greenhaven Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2004 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From August 13, 1961 until November 9, 1989, East and West Berlin were separated by a heavily guarded wall of concrete and barbed wire. The Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of the Cold War between communist-controlled Eastern European nations and democratic Western Allies. This book debates the circumstances under which the Berlin Wall was constructed and details its fall 28 years later.
Download or read book The Berlin Wall written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts written about the construction and fall of the wall by people at the time *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an 'Iron Curtain' has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow." - Winston Churchill, 1946 "This is a historic day. East Germany has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The GDR is opening its borders ... the gates in the Berlin Wall stand open." - German anchorman Hans Joachim Friedrichs Though it never got "hot," the Cold War was a tense era until the dissolution of the USSR, and nothing symbolized the split more than the Berlin Wall, which literally divided the city. Berlin had been a flashpoint even before World War II ended, and the city was occupied by the different Allies even as the close of the war turned them into adversaries. After the Soviets' blockade of West Berlin was prevented by the Berlin Airlift, the Eastern Bloc and the Western powers continued to control different sections of the city, and by the 1960s, East Germany was pushing for a solution to the problem of an enclave of freedom within its borders. West Berlin was a haven for highly-educated East Germans who wanted freedom and a better life in the West, and this "brain drain" was threatening the survival of the East German economy. In order to stop this, access to the West through West Berlin had to be cut off, so in August 1961, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what would become known as the Berlin Wall. The wall, begun on Sunday August 13, would eventually surround the city, in spite of global condemnation, and the Berlin Wall itself would become the symbol for Communist repression in the Eastern Bloc. It also ended Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers (the Soviets, the Americans, the United Kingdom, and France) and the two German states. The wall would serve as a perfect photo-opportunity for two presidents (Kennedy and Reagan) to hammer the Soviet Communists and their repression, but the Berlin Wall would stand for nearly 30 years, isolating the East from the West. It is estimated about 200 people would die trying to cross the wall to defect to the West. Things came to a head in 1989. With rapid change throughout Europe, the wall faced a challenge it could not contain, the challenge of democracy's spread. On the night of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was effectively removed from the midst of the city it so long divided. It was removed with pick axes and sledgehammers, but also removed from the hearts and minds of the people on both sides who only hours before had thought the wall's existence insurmountable. As one writer put it, "No border guard, no wall, can forever shield repressive regimes from the power of subversive ideas, from the lure of freedom." The fall of the Berlin Wall is often considered the end of the Cold War, and the following month both President Bush and Gorbachev declared the Cold War over, but the Cold War had been thawing for most of the 1980s. President Reagan is remembered for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and demanding that Gorbachev tear down the wall, but he spent the last several years of his presidency working with the Soviet leader to improve relations. The end of the Soviet Union came when Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991. The Soviet Union formally dissolved the next day.
Download or read book The Wall Jumper written by Peter Schneider and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-11 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Wall Jumper, real people cross the Wall not to defect but to quarrel with their lovers, see Hollywood movies, and sometimes just because they can't help themselves—the Wall has divided their emotions as much as it has their country.
Download or read book The Defense of Berlin written by Jean Edward Smith and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1963. In 1958 Nikita Khrushchev demanded that the United States, Great Britain, and France withdraw from West Berlin. His demands eventually resulted in the division of Germany's capital city through the building of the Berlin Wall. In The Defense of Berlin, Jean Edward Smith discusses Berlin from the time of arrangements set during the war through 1962, with an emphasis on the effect that the crisis of division had on the city.
Download or read book The Fall of the Berlin Wall written by 50 minutes and published by 50Minutes.com. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keen to learn but short on time? Get to grips with the history of the Berlin Wall in next to no time with this concise guide. 50Minutes.com provides a clear and engaging analysis of the fall of the Berlin Wall.When the Berlin Wall was built unexpectedly in 1961, it divided the city for 28 years, separating families and friends for almost three decades. The Wall was a symbol of the divisions in Germany and Europe that followed the Second World War as well as a reminder of the stringent Communist regime. The fall of the wall was, therefore, cause for huge celebration: families were reunited, East Berliners were finally free of the strict communist regime and the biggest symbol of the East-West divide had collapsed. In just 50 minutes you will: • Understand why the Berlin Wall was built and what its purpose was • Learn about the events leading up the fall of the Berlin Wall and how a miscommunication caused it to fall a day early • Analyse the impact that the wall had on Berlin, Germany and the whole of Europe and why its collapse was so significant ABOUT 50MINUTES.COM | History & Culture 50MINUTES.COM will enable you to quickly understand the main events, people, conflicts and discoveries from world history that have shaped the world we live in today. Our publications present the key information on a wide variety of topics in a quick and accessible way that is guaranteed to save you time on your journey of discovery.