Berlin: The Story of a City

‘It is estimated that at least 2.5 million East Germans had emigrated west by 1961, a sixth of the entire population,’ writes the author, who goes on to explain that some estimates put it as high as 3.5 million people – and it was this relentless exodus, particularly of young people lured by the West, that led to Ulbricht and Honecker’s Operation Rose – the highly secret plan to seal off the allied areas of Berlin by the building of a wall. Such secrecy was required for fear of encouraging further people to flee. The author explains that, early on 13 August 1961 – 60 years ago this summer – the trams were stopped, and 43 kilometres of barbed wire rolled out. The West watched. And it was a further 28 years before the wall came down, and the threatening impasse between East and West moved to a new chapter. Unique and remarkable, the authoritarian erection of the wall, and its subsequent democratic demolition in 1989, form just one facet of Berlin’s startling past in Barney Whitespunner’s eight hundred year history of this beguiling city.

• Published by Simon & Schuster www.simonandschuster.co.uk at £25 (hardback), £10.99 (paperback), £9.99 )ebook) ISBN 9781471181559 HT