The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961-1989 (Hardcover)

by Frederick Taylor (Author)
Key Phrases: border closure, sector border, permanent exit, West Berlin, East German, East Berlin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Walls, like those of Hadrian and Maginot, do not have a good reputation, and Taylor (Dresden) has written a superb narrative of the rise and fall of the monstrous one that scarred Berlin between August 1961 and November 1989. Walls, too, are more than merely bricks and mortar (or, in the 100-mile-long Berlin version's case, anti-vehicle crash obstacles, unclimbable barriers, barbed-wire fences, self-activating searchlights and heavily armed border guards), and one of Taylor's major themes is the Berlin Wall's significance in the global power politics of the Cold War. According to Taylor, Kennedy, Macmillan and de Gaulle were not decisively opposed to the division between East and West Germans. Berlin, in truth, was a dangerously volatile potential flashpoint, and while the erection of the wall was brutal and oppressive to those caught behind or trying to get over it, it stabilized Europe and symbolized the differences between capitalism and communism. Reagan, however, emphasized the rights of the trapped and challenged Gorbachev to tear it down. The Kremlin, ironically, was undone by its own creation. Taylor's enthralling story, combined with impeccable research and its rich human interest, makes this as dramatically gripping as any of the spy thrillers that used the wall as a backdrop. 16 pages of b&w photos, map. (June 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Anne Applebaum

To anyone who remembers the surreal presence of the Berlin Wall, its absence now seems little short of miraculous. Walk from the Tiergarten, once in the West, across Pariser Platz, once a wasteland, and have a beer on the Unter den Linden, once in the East. Now it takes a few minutes; before November 1989, it wouldn't have been possible at all. Or drive through Berlin's western suburbs: Although there are neighborhoods where the streets form odd patterns, it is no longer possible to say which house was on which side of the border back then, so thorough has been the renovation and regeneration of the landscape. And yet at the time, the concrete structure of the Wall seemed so permanent, so indestructible.

This book tells the story of this strange piece of architecture -- that is, how the Berlin Wall was built, and how it then suddenly, and strangely, ceased to exist. It's a story we think we know, since the outlines have long figured in headlines. But as Frederick Taylor demonstrates in this new history, it's also a story with odd twists and hidden secrets, many only recently revealed, some that have been forgotten and are worth repeating.

There are the Wall-jumpers, the hot-air balloonists and the scuba divers who tried to breach the Wall, of course, as well as the story of the East German policeman who drew the white line down the middle of the city, right through the heart of what had been tightly knit neighborhoods, separating neighbors for almost 30 years. There are the tunnelers, both the early enthusiasts and those who later turned it into a business. NBC news sponsored one tunneling team; now we know the West German secret services helped several groups too.

And there is also the tale of vice president Lyndon B. Johnson's momentous tour of Berlin in August 1961, the week after the Wall was constructed. Sent as the envoy of President Kennedy, he greeted the cheering crowds of West Berliners, consulted with Berlin mayor Willy Brandt and inspected the ominous new rolls of barbed wire. Then, at the absolute height of the crisis, just as Johnson was speeding to the East German border to greet newly deployed U.S. troops, the vice president turned to his surprised hosts and asked where he might be able to "pick up some stuff to take home for the folks there." Told that the porcelain shop he was particularly interested in happened to be closed on Sundays, he exploded. "Well, goddammit," he told Brandt. "What if they are closed? You're the mayor, aren't you?" It's a good story -- Taylor clearly enjoys retelling it. In the end, Johnson went home with his porcelain, and the American commitment to West Berlin's strange status was confirmed once again. Indeed, over the 28 years of the Wall's existence, it was never really in doubt, no matter how distracted the Americans were by shopping and other

matters. And for good reason. Although the Wall always seemed a brutal symbol of confrontation, Taylor underlines the degree to which it also represented a tacit agreement: The West agreed not to knock it down, and the East agreed to tolerate West Berlin, an island of democracy and capitalism in the center of a communist country. Indeed, despite the shock of its rapid construction on a summer day in 1961 -- a move that caught the CIA, the West German secret services and pretty much everyone else by surprise -- East and West Berlin learned to live with the Wall, and with each other, even becoming in some ways mutually dependent. Certainly the Wall's existence saved East Germany, which by 1961 was hemorrhaging people -- mostly educated youths seeking a better life in the already more prosperous and freer West -- at an astounding rate of 20,000 every month, according to Taylor. Though the regime always characterized the Wall as the "anti-fascist protection barrier," there was never any doubt that it was designed not to keep fascists out, but to keep East Germans in. Nor was there any doubt that without it, the regime would have collapsed, as indeed it did in 1989 when the Wall was finally breached.

The Wall also allowed West Berlin to develop into the peculiar place it became in the 1970s, when businesses shunned the city but young left-wingers flocked to live there. Residents of West Berlin were not only exempt from military service, they were also likely to be on the receiving end of massive cultural subsidies, doled out by the West German government as a bribe to get people to stay. The result was a city of artists and activists, one that became -- bizarrely, given the circumstances -- deeply anti-American. That American troops protected their freedom to protest against the United States seemed not to bother West Berliners at all. That Johnson and Kennedy had once been cheered as national heroes

seemed to be forgotten as well.

When the Wall fell, East Germany came to an end, as did the West Berlin of apartment squats, empty buildings and government grants for all. But despite West German grumbles about East Germans retaining "a wall inside the mind," and despite the city's state of constant, perilous bankruptcy, the old neighborhoods are now knitting themselves together again with amazing speed. Taylor concludes his excellent history much as I began this review, with a stroll through the newly intact neighborhoods, marveling at the fact that in many parts of Berlin, it is impossible to tell where the Wall used to be. Indeed, sometimes it seems as if it had never existed at all.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060786132
• ISBN-13: 978-0060786137
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #212,288 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Well-Constructed Analysis of the Icon of the Cold War, June 13, 2007

By	John Bennett (Hayle, Cornwall) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having read Frederick Taylor's fast-moving and extremely informative 'Dresden,' I was looking forward to his latest book on that icon of the Cold War - the Berlin Wall. I was not disappointed.

The story of the Wall is not quite as linear as that of Dresden, in which events moved inexorably towards the horrific fire-bombing. Rather, there are three acts: the lead up to the construction of the Wall in 1961; the Wall years; the endgame, 1989.

From the start, the book builds with excitement as it is becomes clear that GDR leader Ulbricht, supported by Security Secretary Honecker, will prevail against the preference of (the surprisingly rational) Khrushchev and be allowed to imprison his own people (who were fleeing in huge numbers). Amazingly, all this was not clear to Western security services.

At the beginning of the 'Wall years' there is a slowing of pace as West Germany and the world come to grips with what has happened right under their noses, and in defiance of the four-power Potsdam Agreement. But it doesn't take long for the excitement to rise again with the escape attempts and the first death. The unravelling of Soviet power that leads to the eventual dismantling of the Wall seems, in the end, to be a closing chapter of the Second World War rather than of the Berlin Wall itself.

Taylor's strength as a historian and storyteller is his ability to weave a great deal of minutely researched detail into a highly readable, very accessible tale. The book taught me an astonishing amount, even though I lived through much of this saga. But it was a pleasure, never a chore.

This book is highly recommended for those who wish to more fully understand a frightening period of recent history.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History at its best , September 28, 2007

By	John E. Drury "jedrury" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Frederick Taylor distinguished himself in his previous book "Dresden." He repeats that distinction in this fascinating, informative book on the Berlin Wall. Deep research and a facile writing style make this book a highly informative and interesting read which moves effortlessly from specifics like escape attempts and stories of the dead to a well written overview ending which he entitles "the theft of hope" for the East Germans. His carefully concealed contempt for Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker never slides into a polemic. Taylor even allows a trace of humor or maybe farce describing Lyndon B. Johnson's 1961 visit to Berlin who sees Willy Brandt's fine shoes and demands to shop for a pair for himself on Sunday.

Taylor, obviously fluent in German, joins the ranks of other fine English historians, all knowledgeable in German, who have recently written superb histories about Germany and European affairs; Max Hastings' "Armageddon," Ian Kershaw on Hitler, Richard Evans' books on the rise of Nazism, Antony Beevor on the battles of Stalingrad and Berlin, and Adam Zamoyski on Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.

These are all fine histories which obviously come about by the access to records, previously unavailable, before the fall of the Wall.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and sobering, July 5, 2007

By	Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Frederick Taylor has constructed a book as forceful as the Berlin Wall, itself. Impassioned, and fervently anti-Communist, Taylor begins and largely finishes a dissemination of the East's regime. It's a landmark book and one to be read by anyone who went through the cold war years.

While "The Berlin Wall" is rife with human sacrifice, as it should be, this book is more of a political juggernaut than deems necessary. JFK, Erich Honecker and others are lumped into the bad guy category while Ronald Reagan makes a cameo appearance as the last true standout. One would have thought we had gotten past the mere simplicity of that argument....the one that Reagan's rhetoric got things changed, but apparently not.

Taylor's book is worth the read but his conclusions leave the reader as cold as the cold war. One hopes he doesn't plan a hagiography of Reagan.