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The Path to the Berlin Wall: Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany

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The Path to the Berlin Wall

Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany

Manfred Wilke
Translated from the German by Sophie Perl

386 pages, 2 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-78238-288-1 $145.00/£107.00 / Hb / Published (April 2014)

eISBN 978-1-78238-289-8 eBook

https://doi.org/10.3167/9781782382881


View CartYour country: - edit Buy the eBook from these vendorsRequest a Review or Examination Copy (in Digital Format)Recommend to your LibraryAvailable in GOBI®

Reviews

“...constitutes a superlative model of combining biography with the study of nationalism. The latter constitutes the most novel contribution of this well-researched, straightforward historical depiction of Kohl’s ideology and its impact upon the continuing development of German national identity... Recommended” · Choice

Description

The long path to the Berlin Wall began in 1945, when Josef Stalin instructed the Communist Party to take power in the Soviet occupation zone while the three Western allies secured their areas of influence. When Germany was split into separate states in 1949, Berlin remained divided into four sectors, with West Berlin surrounded by the GDR but lingering as a captivating showcase for Western values and goods. Following a failed Soviet attempt to expel the allies from West Berlin with a blockade in 1948–49, a second crisis ensued from 1958–61, during which the Soviet Union demanded once and for all the withdrawal of the Western powers and the transition of West Berlin to a “Free City.” Ultimately Nikita Khrushchev decided to close the border in hopes of halting the overwhelming exodus of East Germans into the West.

Tracing this path from a German perspective, Manfred Wilke draws on recently published conversations between Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht, head of the East German state, in order to reconstruct the coordination process between these two leaders and the events that led to building the Berlin Wall.

Born in 1941 in Kassel, Germany, Manfred Wilke received his PhD in economic and social sciences from the University of Bremen in 1976 and his post-doctoral degree in sociology from Freie Universität Berlin in 1981. From 1985–2006, he was Professor of Sociology at the Berlin School of Economics, during which he participated in both Enquête Commissions of the German Bundestag on the history of the SED dictatorship. He also served as Research Director of the Research Association on the SED State at Freie Universität Berlin from 1992–2006.

Subject: History: 20th Century to Present
Area: Germany


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