Beyond the Wall
East Germany, 1949-1990
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5.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * TELEGRAPH * SPECTATOR * PROSPECT
'Utterly brilliant . . . Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-World War II Europe' Julia Boyd
'One of the best young historians writing in English today. . . Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, Beyond the Wall explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany' Andrew Roberts
In 1990, a country disappeared. When the iron curtain fell, East Germany simply ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the GDR presented a radically different German identity to anything that had come before, and anything that exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics.
In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer offers a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country. Beginning with the bitter experience of German Marxists exiled by Hitler, she traces the arc of the state they would go on to create, first under the watchful eye of Stalin, and then in an increasingly distinctive German fashion. From the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, to the relative prosperity of the 1970s, and on to the creaking foundations of socialism in the mid-1980s, Hoyer argues that amid oppression and frequent hardship, East Germany was yet home to a rich political, social and cultural landscape, a place far more dynamic than the Cold War caricature often painted in the West.
Powerfully told, and drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews, letters and records, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, the one beyond the Wall.
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * FINANCIAL TIMES * INDEPENDENT * TELEGRAPH * NEW STATESMAN
Customer Reviews
Refreshing
4.5 stars
Author
German-British journalist and historian just old enough to remember the demise of her birthplace: the GDR (German Democratic Republic) or East Germany. (She was 4 when the Berlin Wall fell.) Ms H has an MA in History from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany, and is currently a visiting fellow in history at King’s College, London. This is her second book. Her first, Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871-1918 appeared in 2021.
Summary
While I was living and working in London in 1987, I passed through Checkpoint Charlie and took a day trip to East Berlin. All I remember is Linden trees and Trabant cars, more of the former than the latter. I recall better the drab grey countryside of the GDR as I traveled from West Berlin to Munich by train, and the sudden change to Technicolor surroundings when we crossed the border into the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). For me and many others old enough to remember the GDR, which ceased to exist in 1990, it was a grey place under the thumb of the world’s most repressive secret police — so called Stasiland — with a nationalised programme of drug cheating in sport.
From extensive interviews with people who lived there, and previously unpublished letters and records, Ms Hoyer shows us there was more to it. GDR society and culture survived and even flourished to a certain extent amid oppression and not infrequent hardship. Living standards were considerably better than is commonly perceived with free health care, free university education and zero employment to name but a few. (Angela Merkel’s family could not have afforded t send her to university if the West.) There was also considerably more politics and politicking going on than the Cold War caricature of the place suggests.
Writing
The prose is clear and crisp, the stories engaging and well referenced. The author covers the bad stuff like the Stasi and the doping in sport, but tends to underplay them compared to other writers (Anna Funder, I’m looking at you), possibly because of lingering affection for her homeland.
Bottom line
Fascinating insider’s tale told with an outsider’s perspective.