Cold War Berlin

Author : Iain MacGregor
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2019-11-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781982100056

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Checkpoint Charlie by Iain MacGregor Pdf

A “constantly captivating…well-researched and often moving” (The Wall Street Journal) history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States confronted the USSR during the Cold War. In the early 1960s, East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall, an eleven-foot-high barrier that consisted of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least five thousand people attempt to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it. In 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades. Now, “in capturing the essence of the old Cold War [MacGregor] may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one” (The Times, London)—the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw 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.

Author : Allan Hailstone
Publisher : Amberley Publishing Limited
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2017-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781445672915

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Berlin in the Cold War by Allan Hailstone Pdf

A fascinating insight into Berlin in a key period of the Cold War.

Author : James Stejskal
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781612004457

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Special Forces Berlin by James Stejskal Pdf

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.

Author : Scott H. Krause,Stefanie Eisenhuth,Konrad H. Jarausch
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2021-03-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780755602773

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Cold War Berlin by Scott H. Krause,Stefanie Eisenhuth,Konrad H. Jarausch Pdf

A wide range of transatlantic contributors addresses Berlin as a global focal point of the Cold War, and also assess the geopolitical peculiarity of the city and how citizens dealt with it in everyday life. They explore not just the implications of division, but also the continuing entanglements and mutual perceptions which resulted from Berlin's unique status. An essential contribution to the study of Berlin in the 20th century, and the effects - global and local - of the Cold War on a city.

Author : Daniel F. Harrington
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 635 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2012-06-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813140643

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Berlin on the Brink by Daniel F. Harrington Pdf

The Berlin blockade brought former allies to the brink of war. Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union defeated and began their occupation of Germany in 1945, and within a few years, the Soviets and their Western partners were jockeying for control of their former foe. Attempting to thwart the Allied powers' plans to create a unified West German government, the Soviets blocked rail and road access to the western sectors of Berlin in June 1948. With no other means of delivering food and supplies to the German people under their protection, the Allies organized the Berlin airlift. In Berlin on the Brink: The Blockade, the Airlift, and the Cold War, Daniel F. Harrington examines the "Berlin question" from its origin in wartime plans for the occupation of Germany through the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in 1949. Harrington draws on previously untapped archival sources to challenge standard accounts of the postwar division of Germany, the origins of the blockade, the original purpose of the airlift, and the leadership of President Harry S. Truman. While thoroughly examining four-power diplomacy, Harrington demonstrates how the ingenuity and hard work of the people at the bottom—pilots, mechanics, and Berliners—were more vital to the airlift's success than decisions from the top. Harrington also explores the effects of the crisis on the 1948 presidential election and on debates about the custody and use of atomic weapons. Berlin on the Brink is a fresh, comprehensive analysis that reshapes our understanding of a critical event of cold war history.

Author : David E. Murphy,Sergei A. Kondrashev,George Bailey
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 588 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 1997-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0300078714

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Battleground Berlin by David E. Murphy,Sergei A. Kondrashev,George Bailey Pdf

Two veteran intelligence agents, one from the CIA and the other from the KGB, join together in an unprecedented collaboration to trace the activities of the two intelligence agencies at the start of the Cold War in postwar Berlin. UP.

Author : Giles Milton
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2021-07-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781250247551

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Checkmate in Berlin by Giles Milton Pdf

From a master of popular history, the lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II as it’s never been told before BERLIN’S FATE WAS SEALED AT THE 1945 YALTA CONFERENCE: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up among the victorious powers— the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their prewar hostility toward—and suspicion of—one another. The veneer of civility between the Western allies and the Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion in Berlin. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that the German capital became an explosive battleground. The warring leaders who ran Berlin’s four sectors were charismatic, mercurial men, and Giles Milton brings them all to rich and thrilling life here. We meet unforgettable individuals like America’s explosive Frank “Howlin’ Mad” Howley, a brusque sharp-tongued colonel with a relish for mischief and a loathing for all Russians. Appointed commandant of the city’s American sector, Howley fought an intensely personal battle against his wily nemesis, General Alexander Kotikov, commandant of the Soviet sector. Kotikov oozed charm as he proposed vodka toasts at his alcohol-fueled parties, but Howley correctly suspected his Soviet rival was Stalin’s agent, appointed to evict the Western allies from Berlin and ultimately from Germany as well. Throughout, Checkmate in Berlin recounts the first battle of the Cold War as we’ve never before seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win, and Milton does a masterful job of weaving between all the key players’ motivations and thinking at every turn. A story of unprecedented human drama, it’s one that had a profound, and often underestimated, shaping force on the modern world – one that’s still felt today.

Author : Hans-Hermann Hertle
Publisher : Ch. Links Verlag
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 3861534630

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Berlin Wall by Hans-Hermann Hertle Pdf

Over 200 previously unpublished photographs document the building and development of the many check points, barbed wire barriers, and alarmed fences which formed the concrete wall around Berlin. This book tells dramatic tales of spectacular escapes and terrible deaths, and explains the history making events surrounding the building and fall of the Wall. Contemporary photographs are contrasted with photographs from the eighties to offer surprising insights into how the former death strip has changed since 1990. Relics of the wall in the current cityscape are prominently illustrated, including remnants of the Wall itself, expanded metal lattice fences, observation towers, barbed wire and concrete posts. Also included are statistics showing the numbers of refugees and victims of the Wall, a guide to the museums and memorials and a summary of the literature and cinema treatment of the Wall, along with a brief chronicle of its history.

Author : Kori Schake
Publisher : Springer
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2002-11-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781403919489

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The Berlin Wall Crisis by Kori Schake Pdf

This volume highlights the complex intra-alliance politics of what was seen as the likeliest flash point of conflict in the Cold War and demonstrates how strongly determinant were concerns about relationships with allies in the choices made by all the major governments. It recounts the evolution of policy during the 1958 and 1961 Berlin crises from the perspective of each government central to the crisis, one on the margins and the military headquarters responsible for crafting an agreed Western military campaign

Author : Barry Turner
Publisher : Icon Books
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2017-10-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781785782558

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The Berlin Airlift by Barry Turner Pdf

Acclaimed historian Barry Turner presents a new history of the Cold War's defining episode. Berlin, 1948 – a divided city in a divided country in a divided Europe. The ruined German capital lay 120 miles inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. Stalin wanted the Allies out; the Allies were determined to stay, but had only three narrow air corridors linking the city to the West. Stalin was confident he could crush Berlin's resolve by cutting off food and fuel. In the USA, despite some voices still urging 'America first', it was believed that a rebuilt Germany was the best insurance against the spread of communism across Europe. And so over eleven months from June 1948 to May 1949, British and American aircraft carried out the most ambitious airborne relief operation ever mounted, flying over 2 million tons of supplies on almost 300,000 flights to save a beleaguered Berlin. With new material from American, British and German archives and original interviews with veterans, Turner paints a fresh, vivid picture the airlift, whose repercussions – the role of the USA as global leader, German ascendancy, Russian threat – we are still living with today.

Author : Iain MacGregor
Publisher : Scribner
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-11-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781982100049

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Checkpoint Charlie by Iain MacGregor Pdf

A “constantly captivating…well-researched and often moving” (The Wall Street Journal) history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States confronted the USSR during the Cold War. In the early 1960s, East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall, an eleven-foot-high barrier that consisted of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least five thousand people attempt to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it. In 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades. Now, “in capturing the essence of the old Cold War [MacGregor] may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one” (The Times, London)—the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw 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.

Author : Robert M. Slusser
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2019-12-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781421432274

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The Berlin Crisis of 1961 by Robert M. Slusser Pdf

Originally published in 1973. This book uses the Berlin Crisis of 1961 as a starting point to investigate Soviet-American relations in the Kruschev period. The book first chronicles the timeline of the succession of events during the Berlin Crisis and their interrelation. It then turns to the close interaction between Soviet and foreign policy before situating the event into the broader timeline of Soviet history.

Author : Thomas Flemming
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Berlin (Germany)
ISBN : UVA:X030565016

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Berlin in the Cold War by Thomas Flemming Pdf

Author : Nigel Kelly
Publisher : Heinemann International Incorporated
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 043107769X

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall by Nigel Kelly Pdf

'The Fall of the Berlin Wall' looks at what was so cold about the Cold War, why the Berlin Wall was built and how the fall of the Berlin Wall changed history.

Author : Christian F. Ostermann,Malcolm Byrne
Publisher : Central European University Press
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Cold War
ISBN : 9639241571

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Uprising in East Germany 1953 by Christian F. Ostermann,Malcolm Byrne Pdf

"A detailed introductory essay to provide the necessary historical and political context precedes each part. The individual documents are introduced by short headnotes summarizing the contents and orienting the reader. A chronology, glossary and bibliography offer further background information."--BOOK JACKET.