At the end of the Second World War, the city of Berlin was located 100 miles (160 km) inside the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. The Western Allies insisted on keeping part of the city for themselves, and so it was divided into four sectors, mimicking the rest of Germany. Stalin needed to persuade the British, French and Americans to leave so that there would be nothing in the way of him completing the strategic buffer of territory reaching from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, which Churchill would later christen the 'Iron Curtain'. Cold War Berlin, an Island City is the story of how Stalin imposed his iron will over eastern Germany, and how he tried to squeeze his former allies out by cutting off their lines of supply and blockading the city. It examines the logistical miracle of the Berlin Airlift, which fed and heated a city of over two million people for almost eleven months. It is a story of alliances forged in the uncertainty of conflict, based on common interests and pragmatic convenience, alliances that would shape the twentieth century but would be betrayed for strategic or political reasons. It is also the tale of how competing ideologies came face to face in the city of Berlin and the new "Cold War" that would come to dominate the second half of the 20th century was created out of the embers of the Second World War. The book is richly illustrated with photos, numerous maps and color profiles and is the first in a mini-series by this author for Helion's Europe@War series on Cold War Berlin.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 96

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 28-03-2021

From the moment the DDR was formed in 1949, many of its citizens chose to leave to start a new life in the West. By the mid-1950s, the trickle had turned into a flood as large numbers rejected Walter Ulbricht's Communist paradise. His 'Workers' & Peasants' State' could not afford to lose the skills and productivity from these key workers, so he proposed a radical solution - physically stop them leaving by fencing in the whole population. His plan would fortify the Inner German Border from the Baltic to the Czech border and would build a Wall around West Berlin to stop the flow of East German refugees to the West. It was a bold, innovative, and desperate move from a morally bankrupt and failing state. This book explores the background and build-up to this monumental decision, reviewing the dramatic geo-political developments of the 1950s and early 1960s as international tensions threatened the post-war peace. Berlin was becoming the front-line in the new Cold War and would witness some of its most dramatic and dangerous moments. It examines in detail how Operation Rose, the August 1961 operation to close the border between East and West Berlin, was planned and executed and looks at how the world reacted, including the tense stand-off at Checkpoint Charlie in October 1961 between American and Soviet tanks, which could have so easily escalated into the Third World War.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 104

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 31-08-2021