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Checkpoint Charlie : the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, and the most dangerous place on earth / Iain MacGregor.

By: Publisher: New York : Scribner, [2019]Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: viii, 340 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781982100032
  • 1982100036
Other title:
  • Cold War, the Berlin Wall, and the most dangerous place on earth
Subject(s): Additional physical formats: Online version:: Checkpoint CharlieDDC classification:
  • 943/.15508770922 23
LOC classification:
  • DD881 .M23 2019
Contents:
Prologue: October 1961 -- Island in the Communist stream -- The spook in Berlin -- In a mousetrap now -- Split asunder -- A new border to patrol -- Who blink's first? -- Elvis is dead -- Let them come to Berlin! -- The secret army -- Searching for a grain of truth -- Catch me if you can! -- Death of a soldier -- The singing Jew of Checkpoint Charlie -- Going underground -- Chimes of freedom -- At the edge of control -- The last escape -- A family in Berlin -- The memo that ended the Cold War -- The flood -- Lights, cameras, action! -- Aftermath -- Goodbye Checkpoint Charlie -- Epilogue: four memories.
Summary: "Checkpoint Charlie is the story of the men and women - from both sides of the Cold War's political divide - who lived, served on, or escaped through the Berlin Wall during its life span (13th August 1961 - 9th November 1989). This physical monstrosity created by the East German communist state was to divide one of the most beautiful and by 1961, ruined cities of the world; dividing families, friends and lovers. Its creation, and its sudden collapse twenty-seven years later, were the key moments of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie was the one place in a paranoid continent where East faced West across one hundred yards of No Man's Land. Where soldiers served, spies watched through trained binoculars, escapees fled, politicians made speeches, people died and, mothers wept. The Wall was seen by many as permanent as the Himalayas. Across the Wall's almost three decades of existence, over two hundred people died trying to escape through it to the West, and these are just the recorded deaths. Many more who attempted and failed to break to freedom, would later die of their wounds in an East German hospital or prison. Historian Iain MacGregor travels to America, Britain, Germany and France to talk to the many people the Berlin Wall affected and who found themselves at the gates of Checkpoint Charlie - either on the Allied, or Soviet side. He interviews soldiers, politicians, journalists, spies, policemen, refugees and escapees to build a picture of what life was like in the city that was universally seen as the "hot spot" of the Cold War for four decades"--
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Book Book Basehor Community Library Non-Fiction Adult 943.155 Mac (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 0003012087336
Book Book Leavenworth Public Library Non-Fiction Adult 943.155 MAC (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available ILEA0004078220
Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-326) and index.

Prologue: October 1961 -- Island in the Communist stream -- The spook in Berlin -- In a mousetrap now -- Split asunder -- A new border to patrol -- Who blink's first? -- Elvis is dead -- Let them come to Berlin! -- The secret army -- Searching for a grain of truth -- Catch me if you can! -- Death of a soldier -- The singing Jew of Checkpoint Charlie -- Going underground -- Chimes of freedom -- At the edge of control -- The last escape -- A family in Berlin -- The memo that ended the Cold War -- The flood -- Lights, cameras, action! -- Aftermath -- Goodbye Checkpoint Charlie -- Epilogue: four memories.

"Checkpoint Charlie is the story of the men and women - from both sides of the Cold War's political divide - who lived, served on, or escaped through the Berlin Wall during its life span (13th August 1961 - 9th November 1989). This physical monstrosity created by the East German communist state was to divide one of the most beautiful and by 1961, ruined cities of the world; dividing families, friends and lovers. Its creation, and its sudden collapse twenty-seven years later, were the key moments of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie was the one place in a paranoid continent where East faced West across one hundred yards of No Man's Land. Where soldiers served, spies watched through trained binoculars, escapees fled, politicians made speeches, people died and, mothers wept. The Wall was seen by many as permanent as the Himalayas. Across the Wall's almost three decades of existence, over two hundred people died trying to escape through it to the West, and these are just the recorded deaths. Many more who attempted and failed to break to freedom, would later die of their wounds in an East German hospital or prison. Historian Iain MacGregor travels to America, Britain, Germany and France to talk to the many people the Berlin Wall affected and who found themselves at the gates of Checkpoint Charlie - either on the Allied, or Soviet side. He interviews soldiers, politicians, journalists, spies, policemen, refugees and escapees to build a picture of what life was like in the city that was universally seen as the "hot spot" of the Cold War for four decades"--

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