Download or read book Escape to West Berlin written by Maurine F. Dahlberg and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2004-10-07 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advent of the Wall Heidi's thirteenth birthday is coming up, but she's disappointed -- her mother is pregnant and refuses to make the annual summer visit to Heidi's grandmother. What's more, it's 1961 and the government is cracking down on border crossers, people who work in the West but live in the East. Heidi's father is a border crosser, and her best friend, Petra, has been forbidden to see Heidi until her father finds a new job in East Berlin. Heidi feels betrayed. Then, as political tension mounts, her parents tell her they are secretly moving West, and Heidi must travel alone to get her grandmother. But how can she do it without Petra's help? The author captures all the terror of the time in her gripping story of an indomitable heroine who steals across the Berlin border by facing her greatest fear.
Download or read book Special Forces Berlin written by James Stejskal and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, “one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history” (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.
Download or read book The Path to the Berlin Wall written by Manfred Wilke and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long path to the Berlin Wall began in 1945, when Josef Stalin instructed the Communist Party to take power in the Soviet occupation zone while the three Western allies secured their areas of influence. When Germany was split into separate states in 1949, Berlin remained divided into four sectors, with West Berlin surrounded by the GDR but lingering as a captivating showcase for Western values and goods. Following a failed Soviet attempt to expel the allies from West Berlin with a blockade in 1948–49, a second crisis ensued from 1958–61, during which the Soviet Union demanded once and for all the withdrawal of the Western powers and the transition of West Berlin to a “Free City.” Ultimately Nikita Khrushchev decided to close the border in hopes of halting the overwhelming exodus of East Germans into the West. Tracing this path from a German perspective, Manfred Wilke draws on recently published conversations between Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht, head of the East German state, in order to reconstruct the coordination process between these two leaders and the events that led to building the Berlin Wall.
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 Berlin 1961 written by Frederick Kempe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-05-10 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called Berlin "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War-and more perilous. It was in that hot summer that the Berlin Wall was constructed, which would divide the world for another twenty-eight years. Then two months later, and for the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each other, only yards apart. One mistake, one nervous soldier, one overzealous commander-and the tripwire would be sprung for a war that could go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster and a humiliating summit meeting that left him grasping for ways to respond. It would add up to be one of the worst first-year foreign policy performances of any modern president. On the other side, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, East Germans, and hardliners in his own government. With an all-important Party Congress approaching, he knew Berlin meant the difference not only for the Kremlin's hold on its empire-but for his own hold on the Kremlin. Neither man really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, they crept closer to the brink. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh-sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama, Berlin 1961 is an extraordinary look at key events of the twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of the twenty-first. Includes photographs
Download or read book Zoo Station written by Christiane F. and published by Zest Books ™. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incredible autobiography of Christiane F. provides a vivid portrait of teen friendship, drug abuse, and alienation in and around Berlin's notorious Zoo Station. Christiane's rapid descent into heroin abuse and prostitution is shocking, but the boredom, longing for acceptance, thrilling risks, and even her musical obsessions are familiar to everyone. Previously published in Germany and the US to critical acclaim, Zest's new translation includes original photographs of Christiane and her friends.
Download or read book Zoo Station written by Ian Walker and published by Harvill Secker. This book was released on 1987 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Architecture Politics and Identity in Divided Berlin written by Emily Pugh and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2014-03-21 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 13, 1961, under the cover of darkness, East German authorities sealed the border between East and West Berlin using a hastily constructed barbed wire fence. Over the next twenty-eight years of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall grew to become an ever-present physical and psychological divider in this capital city and a powerful symbol of Cold War tensions. Similarly, stark polarities arose in nearly every aspect of public and private life, including the built environment. In Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin Emily Pugh provides an original comparative analysis of selected works of architecture and urban planning in both halves of Berlin during the Wall era, revealing the importance of these structures to the formation of political, cultural, and social identities. Pugh uncovers the roles played by organizations such as the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Heritage and the Building Academy in conveying the political narrative of their respective states through constructed spaces. She also provides an overview of earlier notable architectural works, to show the precursors for design aesthetics in Berlin at large, and considers projects in the post-Wall period, to demonstrate the ongoing effects of the Cold War. Overall, Pugh offers a compelling case study of a divided city poised between powerful contending political and ideological forces, and she highlights the effort expended by each side to influence public opinion in Europe and around the World through the manipulation of the built environment.
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 221 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 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 Judgment in Berlin written by Herbert J. Stern and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Suspenseful...moving...equal to any fictional thriller." —San Francisco Chronicle In August 1978, the Iron Curtain still hung heavily across Europe. To escape from oppressive East Berlin, an East German couple, Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede and Ingrid Ruske, hijacked a Polish airliner and diverted it to the American sector of West Berlin. Along with the couple, several passengers spontaneously defected to the West, and were welcomed by US officials. But within hours, Communist officials reminded the West of the anti-hijacking agreements in the Warsaw Pact, and thus the fugitives were arrested by the US State Department. Thirty-four years after World War II, the United States built a court in the middle of West Berlin, the former capital of the Third Reich, in the building that once housed the Luftwaffe, to try the hijacking couple. Former NJ district attorney, now a judge, Herbert J. Stern was appointed the "United States Judge for Berlin." What followed was a trial full of maneuvers and strategies that would put Perry Mason to shame, and answered the question: what is allowed to people seeking freedom? Judgment in Berlin, also a major motion picture starring Martin Sheen and Sean Penn, is unsurpassed as a true-life suspense story, with its vivid accounts of daring escapes, close calls, diplomatic intrigue, and dramatic courtroom confrontations. The original edition won the Freedom Foundation Award, and this updated edition includes a new introduction from author and trial judge Herbert J. Stern.
Download or read book The Tunnels written by Greg Mitchell and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, “A wall is better than a war,” and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “We don’t care about East Berlin.” JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions. As Greg Mitchell’s riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany’s top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the “CBS tunnel”; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; and the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. The Tunnels captures the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police as U.S. networks prepared to “pay for play” but were willing to cave to official pressure, the White House was eager to suppress historic coverage, and ordinary people in dire circumstances became subversive. The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.
Download or read book West Berlin written by United States. Office of Armed Forces Information and Education and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Berlin Calling written by Paul Hockenos and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exhilarating journey through the subcultures, occupied squats, and late-night scenes in the anarchic first few years of Berlin after the fall of the wall Berlin Calling is a gripping account of the 1989 "peaceful revolution" in East Germany that upended communism and the tumultuous years of artistic ferment, political improvisation, and pirate utopias that followed. It’s the story of a newly undivided Berlin when protest and punk rock, bohemia and direct democracy, techno and free theater were the order of the day. In a story stocked with fascinating characters from Berlin’s highly politicized undergrounds—including playwright Heiner Müller, cult figure Blixa Bargeld of the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, the internationally known French Wall artist Thierry Noir, the American multimedia artist Danielle de Picciotto (founder of Love Parade), and David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust incarnation—Hockenos argues that the DIY energy and raw urban vibe of the early 1990s shaped the new Berlin and still pulses through the city today. Just as Mike Davis captured Los Angeles in his City of Quartz, Berlin Calling is a unique account of how Berlin became hip, and of why it continues to attract creative types from the world over.
Download or read book Strangers in Berlin written by Rachel Seelig and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insightful look at the interactions between German and migrant Jewish writers and the creative spectrum of Jewish identity
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 At the Edge of the Wall written by Hanno Hochmuth and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-03-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located in the geographical center of Berlin, the neighboring boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg shared a history and identity until their fortunes diverged dramatically following the construction of the Berlin Wall, which placed them within opposing political systems. This revealing account of the two municipal districts before, during and after the Cold War takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the broader historical trajectories of East and West Berlin, with particular attention to housing, religion, and leisure. Merged in 2001, they now comprise a single neighborhood that bears the traces of these complex histories and serves as an illuminating case study of urban renewal, gentrification, and other social processes that continue to reshape Berlin.
