General & Miscellaneous European History, German History, United States History - 20th Century - 1945 to 2000, 1917-1991 (Soviet Union) - History, Diplomacy & International Relations

The Wall: The People's Story

Name: The Wall: The People's Story
Author: Christopher Hilton
ISBN: 9780752458335

by Christopher Hilton

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Overview

Berlin is positively heaving with extraordinary personal memories. Across a twelve-foot wall and the width of a white painted line at Checkpoint Charlie, East and West confronted each other for nearly thirty years, yet it is the individual stories that are perhaps most telling. Astonishingly, these memories are largely untapped, so until now the complete story of the Berlin Wall -- the people's story -- has remained untold. Hilton has been captivated by Berlin's unique past for three decades, conducting hundreds of interviews there since the Wall came down. Leading world politicians, the American military, the British military, East German border guards and ordinary people on both sides all feature in the book, their memories expertly interwoven into a remarkable, seamless narrative. The result is an extraordinarily vivid, occasionally harrowing, sometimes touching story -- the best real-life novel you'll ever read.

Synopsis

The story of the Berlin Wall, from the perspective of the people who lived in its shadow, including a new chapter on what happened after the wall came down For almost three decades, the Cold War was focused on Berlin, where the two (nuclear-armed) sides were kept apart by a 12-foot wall, which had appeared almost overnight in August 1961. For a generation, until its fall in November 1989, it not only divided the city of Berlin, but also symbolized the confrontation between capitalist West and socialist East. In this astonishing book, journalist Christopher Hilton collected the individual stories of those whose lives it affected, including international politicians, American and British soldiers, East German border guards, and, most importantlty, the citizens of Berlin itself, West and East. Weaving their memories together into a remarkable narrative, this is the extraordinarily vivid, occasionally harrowing, and often touching story of a city divided, and of how it affected the lives of real people.