„The Berlin Wall. Division of a City”

"The governments of the States of the Warsaw Pact appeal to the parliament and government of the GDR and suggest that they ensure that the subversion against the countries of the Socialist Bloc is effectively barred and a reliable guard is set up around the whole area of West Berlin." (p. 6)

This announcement interrupted at 1.11am the "Night-time Melodies" of the East Berlin radio services. And the consequences of this announcement were far-reaching for the citizens of Berlin and the whole GDR. On Sunday 13 August 1961 in the middle of the night the GDR government began with the sealing off of the border between East and West Berlin. From that date streets were cut, S-Bahn trains were stopped and families were separated and that for 28 years till on the 9th of November 1989 the Wall fell.

In his book "The Berlin Wall. Division of a City" Thomas Flemming pays attention to the history of the Wall through Berlin. In eight chapters he describes the life of the people in East and West Berlin with the Wall, he explains from escape operations, protests against the Wall and last but not least from the Fall of the Wall and from the things which were left over of this sign of the SED dictatorship.
With a lot of fascinating photographs, documents and anecdotes Flemming illustrates the full story of the Berlin Wall. Because of that the book is really interesting to read and already after the reading of the first sentences you want to know more about the whole story.

The book has 78 pages and a map with the route of the Berlin Wall. It was published in 2006 by the be.bra Verlag GmbH. The price amounts to €9,90 and you can buy it on the homepage of the ber.bra Verlag. The ISBN is 978-3-930863-74-7. The author Thomas Flemming was born in 1957 and studied history, German and philosophy at the FU Berlin. He is publicist and historian and publishes a lot of texts especially on the subject of post-war history and the history of Berlin.