Book description
>
A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a
potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world
for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse.
This threat would vanish only when the very people the Wall had been
built to imprison, breached it on the historic night of 9 November 1989
.
Frederick Taylor
's eagerly awaited new book reveals the strange and
chilling story of how the initial barrier system was conceived, then
systematically extended, adapted and strengthened over almost thirty
years. Patrolled by vicious dogs and by guards on shoot-to-kill
orders, the Wall, with its more than 300 towers, became a wired and
lethally booby-trapped monument to a world torn apart by fiercely
antagonistic ideologies.
The Wall had tragic consequences in personal and political
terms, affecting the lives of Germans and non-Germans alike in a
myriad of cruel, inhuman and occasionally absurd ways. The Berlin
Wall is the definitive account of a divided city and its people.
FONT> during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was
both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to
metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal
insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall.
The appearance of a
hastily-constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of
Berlin<
PRAISE FOR 'DRESDEN' 'In narrative power and
persuasion, he has paralleled in Dresden what Antony Beevor achieved
in Stalingrad' Independent on Sunday 'Well-researched and
unpretentious ... fascinating ... Taylor skilfully interweaves
various personal accounts of the impact of the raids' Michael
Burleigh, Guardian 'Impressive ... Taylor weaves a chilling
narrative from eyewitness accounts and painstaking documentary
research, particularly with German sources. He explains the
conceptual and strategic background with admirable clarity. His
account of the air operation itself is quite superb' The Times
>
A city of almost four million was cut
ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West
crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the
fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse. This threat would vanish
only when the very people the Wall had been built to imprison,
breached it on the historic night of
9 November 1989
.
Frederick Taylor
's eagerly awaited new book reveals the strange
and chilling story of how the initial barrier system was conceived,
then systematically extended, adapted and strengthened over almost
thirty years. Patrolled by vicious dogs and by guards on
shoot-to-kill orders, the Wall, with its more than 300 towers,
became a wired and lethally booby-trapped monument to a world torn
apart by fiercely antagonistic ideologies.
The Wall had tragic consequences in personal and political
terms, affecting the lives of Germans and non-Germans alike in a
myriad of cruel, inhuman and occasionally absurd ways. The Berlin
Wall is the definitive account of a divided city and its
people. FONT> during the night of 12-13
August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had
started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to
symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall.
The appearance of a hastily-constructed barbed wire
entanglement through the heart of Berlin<
