Berlin Wall (Up/Down) book recommendations

August 30, 2024 3:01 PM

Does anyone have any good book recommendations for a history of the Berlin Wall? I was watching Atomic Blonde and thought about Steve Rogers’s notebook list of modern things to look into (hence my subject line), and that got me thinking about when it went up.

I wasn’t aware of that part as I was too young, but I remember being quite galvanized by its fall (and enraged that fucking Reagan gets credit for starting it), and I knew a girl in junior high whose family had managed to cross at great peril. It’s always had a background influence in a way, yet I don’t know much about the actual functional history.

So I’d love to read something that delves into those aspects, not too scholarly but if there’s anything in the more general sense (I love Timothy Egan’s histories, for example). Either physical book or ebook is fine.

posted by kitten kaboodle to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Best answer: It certainly has a narrower scope, but Tim Mohr's Burning Down the Haus specifically covers the punk movement in Berlin and East Germany, to which the wall and border crossings are a central part of the story.

Has an audiobook too, but can't vouch for the quality.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:13 PM on August 30 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, The Berlin Wall, and the Most Dangerous Place On Earth By Iain MacGregor
posted by Ideefixe at 4:16 PM on August 30

From just before the end of the War to just before the Wall: Armageddon - a Novel of Berlin by Leon Uris. Also, a comedy: James Cagney is a Coca-Cola executive in Berlin, just before the Wall went up, in One, Two, Three from 1960.
posted by Rash at 9:43 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There’s a great book by Timothy Moss called Remaking Berlin, which is a history of Berlin’s infrastructure - water, sewage, electricity. Chapters 6-8 deal with the division of the city and how it played out in terms of infrastructure. That may be a bit too obscure for your purposes, but in his discussion of the wall Moss cites Frederick Taylor’s The Berlin Wall, which might be more on point. He also refers to the Greg Castillo essay in the edited volume Berlin: Divided City - that might also be of interest.
posted by yarrow at 5:47 AM on August 31

Not a book, but the BBC Podcast "Intrigue" did a series on the Berlin Wall about a group that tunneled under the wall and facilitated multiple escapes: Tunnel 29.
posted by airplant at 7:37 PM on September 1

Much, much broader than the Wall, you still might be interested in The Ghosts of Berlin which talks about Berlin's urban landscape, its history and debates about it more widely.
posted by Vortisaur at 1:53 AM on September 4