Escape from East Berlin PDF Download

Author: Annemarie Struwe Cronin
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1468596047
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Born in Berlin in 1928, Annemarie Struwe Cronin witnessed firsthand the Nazi government's rise to power. She watched the devastation of her hometown by Allied bombing, traveled through the destruction and the dead and dying during the last days of the war in Europe. Annemarie fought to attain happiness and fulfillment despite unbelievable odds. Struggling through the last battle for Berlin, while trying to return home and search for her family, she used all her strength and determination to not be captured and face the horrors that would ensue. Upon being reunited with her family, the author discovered her brother, Karl, had been sent to a Siberian work camp. Continuing to fight against the horrors of Communist rule in East Berlin, she ultimately decided to escape. After three attempts and two bullet wounds, she finally reached the sanctuary of the West. There, her beautiful voice and love for life would take her to West Germany and then to North Africa, where she met the man she was destined to marry, Tom Cronin, a United States Air Force major.

Author: Greg Mitchell
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101903864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall. In the summer of 1962, the year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture, and even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then two U.S. television networks heard about the secret projects and raced to be first to document them from the inside. NBC and CBS funded two separate tunnels in return for the right to film the escapes, planning spectacular prime-time specials. President John F. Kennedy, however, was wary of anything that might spark a confrontation with the Soviets, having said, “A wall is better than a war,” and even confessing to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, “We don’t care about East Berlin.” JFK approved unprecedented maneuvers to quash both documentaries, testing the limits of a free press in an era of escalating nuclear tensions. As Greg Mitchell’s riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Germany’s top target for arrest; the Stasi informer who betrays the “CBS tunnel”; the American student who aided the escapes; an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English channel; and the young East Berliner who fled with her baby, then married one of the tunnelers. The Tunnels captures the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police as U.S. networks prepared to “pay for play” but were willing to cave to official pressure, the White House was eager to suppress historic coverage, and ordinary people in dire circumstances became subversive. The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate.

Author: Helena Merriman
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 9781541788831
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Based on a hit podcast series, this book tells the unbelievable true story of an escape tunnel under the Berlin Wall--the people who built it, the spy who betrayed it, and the media event it inspired. In September 1961, at the height of the Cold War, 22-year-old Joachim Rudolph escaped from East Germany, one of the world's most brutal regimes. He'd risked everything to do it. Then, a few months later, working with a group of students, he picked up a spade... and tunneled back in. The goal was to tunnel into the East to help people escape. They spend months digging, hauling up carts of dirt in a tunnel ventilated by stove pipes. But the odds are against them: a Stasi agent infiltrates their group and on their first attempt, and dozens of escapees and some of the diggers are arrested and imprisoned. Despite the risk of prison and death, a month later, Joachim and the other try again and hit more bad luck: the tunnel springs a leak. After several attempts, run-ins with a spy and secret police, and some unlikely financial aid from an American TV network, they finally break through into the East, and free 29 people. This is the story of their great escape, the NBC documentary crew that filmed it, and the U.S. government's attempts to block the film from ever seeing the light of day. But more than anything, this is the story of what people will do to be free.

Author: Kristen Fulton
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452170584
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
An Inspiring True Story about One Family's Escape from Behind the Berlin Wall! Peter was born on the east side of Germany, the side that wasn't free. He watches news programs rather than cartoons, and wears scratchy uniforms instead of blue jeans. His family endures long lines and early curfews. But Peter knows it won't always be this way. Peter and his family have a secret. Late at night in their attic, they are piecing together a hot air balloon—and a plan. Can Peter and his family fly their way to freedom? This is the true story of a boy and his family who risk their lives for the hope of freedom in a daring escape from East Germany via a handmade hot air balloon in 1979. • A perfect picture book for educators teaching about the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, and East Germany • Flight for Freedom is a showcase for lessons of bravery, heroism, family, and perseverance, as well as stunning history • Includes detailed maps of the Wetzel family's escape route and diagrams of their hot air balloon For fans of historical nonfiction picture books like Let the Children March, The Wall, Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, and Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon. • True life escape stories • For readers age 5–9 • For teachers, librarians, and historians Kristen Fulton is a children's book author. She can always be found with a notebook in hand as she ventures through historical sites and museums. Most of the time she lives in Florida—but she can also be found traveling the country by RV. Torben Kuhlmann is an award-winning children's book author and illustrator. Starting in kindergarten he became known as "the draftsman." Flying machines and rich historical detail often adorn his work. He lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Author: Maurine F. Dahlberg
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374309590
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Set in 1961 East Berlin, this gripping story of a 13-year-old girl who steals across the Berlin border by facing her greatest fear captures all the terror of this precarious time in history.

Author: Andy Marino
Publisher: Scholastic Incorporated
ISBN: 9781338832044
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
From the author of The Plot to Kill Hitler trilogy and Escape from Chernobyl comes another fast-paced, high-interest historical thriller, chronicling two daring attempts to cross the Berlin Wall, set decades apart. December, 1961 - Marta is a young girl who saw thirty miles of barbed wire appear across her city overnight, separating Berlin into West and East -- with Marta's home on the Communist Bloc-controlled eastern side. -- January, 1989 - Now a spray-painted concrete monolith, the Berlin Wall bisects the city. Kurt, a young East Berliner, often wonders what those living on the other side must think of their unseen neighbors. Do they hate the people of East Germany as completely as Kurt has been instructed to hate them? -- Inspired by real events, Escape from East Berlin tells two stories of daring bids for freedom from the Eastern Bloc, set decades apart and relayed in alternating perspectives. Triumph and tragedy intertwine in this examination of both the earliest and final days of the Berlin Wall.

Author: Anthony Kemp
Publisher: Hyperion Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
"[This book] is the story of the escape organisers and the peole who they have helped to escape, and it takes the reader into the real life world of the thriller and the spy novel. Opening with a concise account of the background to and the construction of the Wall, [the author] describes Wolfgang Fuchs who built at least seven tunnels, and freed the woman who was to become his wife. He visits the pub near the Wall from where many escapes were planned and which now serves as a museum. He describes some of the most spectacular escapes, using hot air balloons, hang-gliders, light aircraft and diving equipment. The daring work of today's escape organisers who use couriers, passports forged on trains and specially built cars concludes the book."--Book jacket.

Author: Jennifer A. Nielsen
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545682436
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
From NYT bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen comes a stunning thriller about a girl who must escape to freedom after the Berlin Wall divides her family between east and west. A Night Divided joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!With the rise of the Berlin Wall, Gerta finds her family suddenly divided. She, her mother, and her brother Fritz live on the eastern side, controlled by the Soviets. Her father and middle brother, who had gone west in search of work, cannot return home. Gerta knows it is dangerous to watch the wall, yet she can't help herself. She sees the East German soldiers with their guns trained on their own citizens; she, her family, her neighbors and friends are prisoners in their own city.But one day on her way to school, Gerta spots her father on a viewing platform on the western side, pantomiming a peculiar dance. Gerta concludes that her father wants her and Fritz to tunnel beneath the wall, out of East Berlin. However, if they are caught, the consequences will be deadly. No one can be trusted. Will Gerta and her family find their way to freedom?

Author: Iain MacGregor
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1472130561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
'As convoluted and deadly as the plot of a novel by John le Carre, but all too real' Daily Mail, Must Reads 'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West divide that poisoned Europe for almost half a century, [MacGregor] has made an important contribution to the history of our times' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Captures brilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the wall - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited' Jon Snow A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the city throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union that contains never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.

Author: Mary Sarotte
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465064949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.