The Fall of the Berlin Wall (Hardcover)

~ William F Buckley Jr. (Author) "Early in the year in which John F. Kennedy became president of the United States, apprehension about Soviet foreign policy was high..." (more)
Key Phrases: West Berlin, East Germany, East Berlin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Buckley's lucid account celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to achieve freedom." -- Publishers Weekly, March 1, 2004

"...decodes the Cold War endgame..." -- Vanity Fair, March 2004

"Eloquent... immensely readable... the saga of the victory of capitalism over the brutal and irrational fraud that was state socialism." -- Baltimore Sun, March 21, 2004

"Eloquent...immensely readable...the saga of the victory of capitalism over the brutal and irrational fraud that was state socialism." (Baltimore Sun, March 21, 2004)

"[A] great narrative of democratic survival and democratic victory." (Washington Time, March 30, 2004)

"This is a small masterpiece of the narrative tradition. The Fall of the Berlin Wall keep[s] readers turning the page." (National Review, March 22, 2004)

"...decodes the Cold War endgame..." (Vanity Fair, March 2004)

From the day the Berlin Wall went up, in August of 1961, separating East and West Berlin, to the day it came crumbling down in November 1989, it stood as a symbol of the denial of freedom and the horrors of communism. In his latest book, renowned conservative writer Buckley tells the story of the Wall from its historic inception to its fateful fall. This new entry in Wiley's Turning Points series is not an in-depth historical account of East German communism but a brief overview of cri tical events, accompanied by Buckley's insightful and occasionally witty commentary. Despite the author's political orientation, the book does not evince a strong political bias (traditionally, conservatives tout Reagan as a major player in the fall of communism, but Buckley devotes a scant couple of pages to Reagan's policies and his famous "te ar down this wall" speech); the story of the Berlin Wall is remarkable in itself, capable of being appreciated by all, regardless of their politics. It's a story about separated families, thousands of East Berliner s who risked their lives to taste freedom on the other side; those who did not make it-shot down by Communist police as they attempted to scale the wall. Buckley is at times funny, at times genuinely horrified by the Communist regime, and at times exultant over its fall. His lucid account celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to achieve freedom. Map. Agent, Lois Wallace. (Mar. 26) (Publishers Weekly, March 1, 2004)

Early in his presidency, Ronald Reagan called communism a "sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." Ten months after he left office, one of the grimmest symbols of communism's inhumanity -- the Berlin Wall -- was breached, and the Soviet empire itself soon lay on the ash heap of history.
In "The Fall of the Berlin Wall" (Wiley, 212 pages, $19.95), William F. Buckley Jr. describes the Wall's final dramatic moments, as his title suggests, but he also tells the story of its construction and its role in the Cold War. The book is part of a publishing series called Turning Points, in which prominent writers take a fresh look at key moments in history. As stories go, few can match the intrigue and tragedy of the Berlin Wall. Imagine other great cities slashed through the middle: New York at 42nd Street, say, or Paris at the Champs-Elysees.
Mr. Buckley himself tackled this subject in a 1984 novel in which his East German resistance hero came close to forcing the Soviets to back down from their plan to splice the city in two. This was not sheer fancy on Mr. Buckley's part. In 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the East Germans: "We Soviets are not willing to risk a major engagement with the West" and ordered them to withdraw if the Allies reacted to the Wall's construction with force. It turned out that John F. Kennedy and other Western leaders were relieved that Khrushchev's bluster only sealed off the city and didn't actually threaten West Berlin.
Erich Honecker, the East German official in charge of building the Wall, kept direct knowledge of the project limited to 20 people. The troops who started stringing barbed wire at 2 a.m. on Aug. 12, 1961, were told of their mission only when they got to the border. Once he became East German leader, Mr. Honecker declared himself proud of his "anti-fascist protective barrier." Too proud, it turned out. By delaying reforms, he let resentment among his own citizens build until, by 1989, a full 5% of East German adults had taken the risk of being branded disloyal by requesting exit visas. That summer Hungary began allowing East German tourists to slip through to the West, and the genie was out of the bottle. Mr. Honecker was soon swept down into his own ash heap.
In one sense, the Wall was a formidable barrier. It stood 13 feet high and was supplemented by watchtowers, alarms, mines, trenches, dogs and guards with machine guns. More than 100 people died trying to cross it. It became a tourist attraction. Mr. Buckley notes that "virtually every square inch of the Western side was covered with drawings and text and symbols." Even toward the end the experts thought it would remain in place. Many citizens, too. "Most Germans themselves are convinced," wrote journalist Peter Wyden weeks before the Wall fell, "that the prospect of a single Germany is a fantasy."
But the Wall was surmounted by invisible forces. "The enemy of the people stands on the roof," raged Honecker's predecessor, Walter Ulbricht, complaining about the television antennas that were pointed west at night and allowed 85% of East Germans to watch Western TV and see what they were missing.
Mr. Buckley writes about the many individual Germans who did their part to bring the Wall down. An American stalwart was Gen. Lucius Clay, the organizer of the 1948 Berlin Airlift, who learned after the Wall went up about the isolation of Steinstucken, an exclave of 200 West Berliners who were separated from the city by East German territory. He flew in by helicopter to reassure them and arranged to supply them by air until the East Germans allowed road access to the West, around the Wall.
But for different reasons, history will record two paramount figures: Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr. Reagan first saw the Wall in 1978, when he told his aide Peter Hannaford: "We've got to find a way to knock this thing down." After he became president, he returned in 1982 and enraged the Soviets by taking a couple of ceremonial steps across a painted border line. Then, in 1987, he overruled his own State Department by giving a momentous speech in which he implored the general secretary directly: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
The "tide of history" that Mr. Reagan liked to refer to in his speeches must have been on Mr. Gorbachev's mind two years later when he visited East Berlin and informed the comrades there that they needed to change. He told reporters who asked about the Wall: "Dangers await only those who do not react to life." The signal was sent that Moscow would no longer prop up a corrupt system.
Mr. Buckley believes that the Wall's fall was both a vindication of the West's refusal to kowtow to the Soviets and a tribute to the "undeniable spirit of East German dissenters." Today pieces of the Wall exist as mere souvenirs on mantelpieces. Elsewhere in the world, sadly, the symbols of oppression are still intact. But as Mr. Buckley's poignant narrative reminds us: There is no reason to suppose that this will always be the case. (Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2004)

"This is a small masterpiece of the narrative tradition.  The Fall of the Berlin Wall keep[s] readers turning the page." -- National Review, March 22, 2004

"[A] great narrative of democratic survival and democratic victory." -- Washington Time, March 30, 2004

Product Description

"I wrote a novel about the construction of the Berlin Wall (The Story of Henri Tod) in my Blackford Oakes series. I traveled to inspect the wall, submitting to the indignities of Checkpoint Charlie. The near mystical idea of the wall--bisecting the capital of a modern, industrialized country, as if it were the fancy of a Genghis Khan--fascinated me beyond the stark ideological meaning of it.

I returned to Berlin after the wall came down, and found that bits and pieces of it eerily remained, framed, here and there, like curios of a prehistoric age.

I now tell the story of the wall’s abandonment, and of the life that sprang from it not only for Berlin, but for the entire world, the symbol of the end of a seventy-year long menace. And undertaking this in the Wiley series, the length brief, but the story luxuriant, has had for me a special appeal."

—William F. Buckley Jr.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1St Edition edition (March 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471267368
• ISBN-13: 978-0471267362
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #614,122 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The denouement of the Cold War..., May 7, 2004

By	Thomas Moody (STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Before reading this surprisingly succinct work by William F.Buckley, it would have been hard for me to imagine a comprehensive Cold War history consolidated into 192 pages of text. But under the amazingly capable pen of Buckley, the reader learns all the highlights (lowlights?) of this seminal period in International history.

Starting with the Four-Power agreement in post WWII Germany, we see the numerous policy offenses initiated by the USSR as they grasp for power by forming the Eastern Bloc of socialist countries. Nowhere is this skewed outlook more evident than in war-torn and politically seperated Germany...specifically, it's capital in Berlin. We see immediately, the subversion encountered by the citizens of East Berlin and their realization that life would be best lived outside this repressive regime. The outpouring of the population to the West is, of course, the reason that the Wall is erected...thus symbolically subjugating Eastern Europe to over 30 years of repressive treatment. Communist/Socialist leaders from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker are analyzed and dismissed as their policies reflect the repressive attitude that Communism endows on it's subjects...while at the same time it's leaders live in comparative luxury. Buckley provides these insights with a wit and writing style that makes it easy to understand this subversion and frustration that all in the East must have felt during this period. Documenting the many attrocities enacted by the East Germans as the Wall is erected and further enhanced throughout the 60's, Buckley takes the reader along for the many inside dealings that the East tried to legitimize and enhance it's regime on the International stage.

Major Cold War events such as the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the "Prague Spring" in 1968 are connected with Buckley's wry commentary that also ties in the human component to these major events. We see American General Lucious Clay stare down the Soviets at Checkpoint Charlie and see how this strength of character was unfortunately a rareity in American policy towards the Soviet Union...rare until that confleunce of major Cold War revisionists Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev enacted several initiatives that ultimately lead not only to the destruction of the Wall, but the end of Communism and, more specifically, the Soviet Union itself. Buckley covers all this in an amazingly comprehensive manner and closes out the book with the enacting of the Democratic government that exists in a unified Germany today.

If a short, to-the-point comprehensive history of the Cold War and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall is what you're looking for, than this is the book for you. Beautifully written and covering all the major seminal periods of the Cold War, Buckley enhances his reputation as a political writer and serves the public well with "The Fall of the Berling Wall". This is a work that I'd recommend highly.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Spirit of '89, June 28, 2004

By	Patrick Devenny (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

Obviously, the Cold War is so multifaceted and complex that it would take about 20 times this thin volume to fully explain its many dimensions and manifestations. Even if one concentrates on the Cold War in Europe, a reader would still be faced with a lengthy reading assignment. While Buckley does not deliver any kind of amazing historical work in this book, the brilliant scion of the conservative movement gives a crisp description of the spirit of the Cold War. By spirit I refer to the very human emotions and motivations that drove the two superpowers to loggerheads for over 40 years. After reading this wonderful little gem of a book, a reader should better understand just what was at stake for all those seemingly distant decades, and perhaps appreciate more dearly the joyous way in which the longest of wars came to an end in the streets of Berlin.

Buckley manages to weave the majesty of the 40 years of intense diplomatic and international history into a very quick and enjoyable reading experience. The famed conservative scribe was motivated to write this book because of his own experience with the Berlin Wall. Like many others, Buckley was stunned by the sheer historical weight of the granite, and the deep political divisions it represented. The early days of East Germany are detailed, as German communists and their Soviet overlords tried desperately to compete with increasingly powerful western sector. This task was obviously impossible, as the decrepit realities of communist economics suddenly made themselves very evident. As the best and the brightest of the communist East began to flow over the border, the authorities had to construct a block. While few believed this block would be so starkly medieval in its presence, the communists had little choice. Buckley makes a very interesting assertion that if America had made a substantial show of force in Berlin, the Soviets were very willing to back down. However, President Kennedy at the time was fairly chaste in handling the Soviets, believing that since the world was on such a razors edge, it was not wise to enter the dangerous game at that juncture. The wall went up, higher and higher, and escape soon became impossible. The Iron Curtain was now real, for all the world to see.

The years of separation are really amazing ones when one thinks about the mind boggling dimensions of it. A modern city, physically torn apart. Buckley pushes this stunning idea, so foreign to younger readers such as myself. The wall became the symbol for everything evil in the world, of man?s domination of its fellow man. Buckley reveals himself, at least to me, as a very prolific political writer. His understanding of western European politics and the inner meanings of it are really gripping. Various German governments sought new ways to approach the wall, none of which were very successful. It was only when Reagan put a spotlight on the wall did the first cracks appear. The best part of the book is the fairly rapid dissolution of the communist block, a breakdown with many different parents. When the wall finally did collapse under its own tyrannical weight, the pent up feelings of millions of oppressed Germans were finally heard, for all the world to hear, at last.

No one can write this tale better than Buckley, as he was a major player in the ideological battle that dominated American politics at the time. Of course he will lend his own color to the fight, but that is fine by me and is not as pronounced as expected. If you are looking for a flowing and condensed version of political history, this is the book to turn to. Just a joy to read and very education as well.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fall of the Berlin Wall, March 17, 2004

By A Customer

This book is really fascinating. William F. Buckley Jr. writes with amazing detail about the symbolism of the Berlin Wall, both its rise and ultimately, the meaning of its fall. I really found the personal stories included, of people trying to escape to West Germany, to be so powerful. Anybody who is interested in the Cold War history should read this book.