The Path to the Berlin Wall - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Path to the Berlin Wall write by Manfred Wilke. This book was released on 2014-04-01. The Path to the Berlin Wall available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Driving the Soviets up the Wall
Driving the Soviets up the Wall - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Driving the Soviets up the Wall write by Hope M. Harrison. This book was released on 2011-06-27. Driving the Soviets up the Wall available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War. For the first time, this path-breaking book tells the behind-the-scenes story of the communists' decision to build the Wall in 1961. Hope Harrison's use of archival sources from the former East German and Soviet regimes is unrivalled, and from these sources she builds a highly original and provocative argument: the East Germans pushed the reluctant Soviets into building the Berlin Wall. This fascinating work portrays the different approaches favored by the East Germans and the Soviets to stop the exodus of refugees to West Germany. In the wake of Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviets refused the East German request to close their border to West Berlin. The Kremlin rulers told the hard-line East German leaders to solve their refugee problem not by closing the border, but by alleviating their domestic and foreign problems. The book describes how, over the next seven years, the East German regime managed to resist Soviet pressures for liberalization and instead pressured the Soviets into allowing them to build the Berlin Wall. Driving the Soviets Up the Wall forces us to view this critical juncture in the Cold War in a different light. Harrison's work makes us rethink the nature of relations between countries of the Soviet bloc even at the height of the Cold War, while also contributing to ongoing debates over the capacity of weaker states to influence their stronger allies.
The Collapse
The Collapse - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Collapse write by Mary Sarotte. This book was released on 2014-10-07. The Collapse available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Berlin Wall write by Norman Gelb. This book was released on 1988. The Berlin Wall available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall write by John DiConsiglio. This book was released on 2006. The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Chronicles the history of the Berlin Wall, explaining why it was built, how it was constructed, and the impact it had on the lives of people on both sides, and describes the events leading up to the wall's destruction.
