Just Finished Reading: The Berlin Wall (13 August 1961 – 9 November 1989) by Frederick Taylor (FP: 2006) [449pp]

It could not be allowed to go on for much longer. With the demarcation between East and West Berlin being noting more than a line drawn on a map there was nothing to stop thousands of citizens of the Communist East simply walking over that line and never coming back. True, it wasn’t exactly that easy for lots of reasons but there was little in the way of a barrier between the two increasingly belligerent ideological coalitions. Finally, Walter Ulbricht the Premier of East Germany got his way with an agreement with the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev – a barrier could be built to stop the ongoing ‘brain drain’ from the East to the more prosperous West Berlin. Over a holiday weekend secret plans were put into operation and barbered wire began snaking across the demarcation line. Before anyone really knew what was happening it was now much more difficult to escape to the West. In a last minute panic many people took what they thought was their last opportunity to make a break for freedom – including one very young East German soldier pictured below. Captured in a single, now iconic shot, he made the front cover of newspapers across the world as people looked on with a mixture of bemusement and horror. Over the subsequent years, until its rapid and unexpected fall 28 years later, the Berlin Wall became both a symbol of Soviet repression (and the abject failure of their system) and a magnet for those wishing to escape. Helped by radical West Berlin students who dug tunnels to well-funded organisations who worked for no higher motivation than to make serious money many still made their way West despite an ever increasing effort to make such things impossible. The Wall itself was an act of desperation and a very public admission of failure both for the Soviet system as a whole and of the East German socialist project in particular. Before the wall went up in 1961 many thousands of East Germans and other East Europeans had made it to West Berlin and thence into the waiting arms of Western societies throughout Europe and points west. The Wall was there to stop them and ultimately to protect the USSR from the siren call of capitalist freedom. In that regard it was a singular failure.

I remember in 1989 watching the Berlin Wall fall and the celebrations being held on both sides. As we did so my friend turned to me and suggested we fly there to join in. Every impetuous he had not thought about any of the issues with doing so. I don’t think I had a valid passport at the time, neither of us could speak German, no doubt flight to Berlin would be packed with thousands of other people having the same thoughts and we both had work to go to. So, needless to say we didn’t end up sipping beer while dancing on the grave of the Soviet Union. Told from the Allied and Soviet occupation in 1945, through the Berlin airlift, and thence to the crumbling relations between West and East the first half of this often riveting narrative builds on the foundations of why the Wall was built in the first place. The second half of the book looked at the existence of the wall, attempts to circumvent it and the political fallout from its creation including the famous Kennedy and Reagan visits in 1963 and 1987 respectively. If you’ve ever wondered why the Berlin Wall went up and how German’s on both sides lived (and sometimes died) because of it then this is definitely the book for you. One of the highlights of the year and highly recommended.