Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of PowerFew historical changes occur literally overnight, but on 13 August 1961 eighteen million East Germans awoke to find themselves walled in by an edifice which was to become synonymous with the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. This new history rejects traditional, top-down approaches to Cold War politics, exploring instead how the border closure affected ordinary East Germans, from workers and farmers to teenagers and even party members, 'caught out' by Sunday the Thirteenth. Party, police, and Stasi reports reveal why one in six East Germans fled the country during the 1950s, undermining communist rule and forcing the eleventh-hour decision by Khrushchev and Ulbricht to build a wall along the Cold War's frontline. Did East Germans resist or come to terms with immurement? Did the communist regime become more or less dictatorial within the confines of the so-called 'Antifascist Defence Rampart'? Using film and literature, but also the GDR's losing battle against Beatlemania, Patrick Major's cross-disciplinary study suggests that popular culture both reinforced and undermined the closed society. Linking external and internal developments, Major argues that the GDR's official quest for international recognition, culminating in Ostpolitik and United Nations membership in the early 1970s, became its undoing, unleashing a human rights movement which fed into, but then broke with, the protests of 1989. After exploring the reasons for the fall of the Wall and reconstructing the heady days of the autumn revolution, the author reflects on the fate of the Wall after 1989, as it moved from demolition into the realm of memory. |
Contents
| 1 | |
PART I BEFORE THE WALL 1945 61 | 21 |
PART II BEHIND THE WALL 1961 89 | 117 |
PART III BEYOND THE WALL | 225 |
Other editions - View all
Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power Patrick Major No preview available - 2009 |
Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power Patrick Major No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
17 June appeared applicants attempts August authorities became become began Bericht border BPA SED building called cent Central citizens claimed closed Cold comrades continued crisis critical demands demonstrations despite Deutschland early East German eastern economic emigration f¨ur fall Federal Figure final forces former GDR’s groups guards hand Honecker hopes initiatives instance July June later leader leadership leave Leipzig living March Mauer movement Nevertheless noted November October official party peace petitions Plan police political population Potsdam Press problems reform regime relatives remained reported Republikflucht SAPMO-BArch Schwerin sector SED-BL SED-ZK Sept side situation social socialist society Soviet turned uber Ulbricht University Volkspolizei Wall wanted West Berlin western workers young youths