Burned Bridge
How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain
- Publisher's listprice GBP 19.99
-
9 550 Ft (9 095 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 955 Ft off)
- Discounted price 8 595 Ft (8 186 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
9 550 Ft
Availability
Uncertain availability. Please turn to our customer service.
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 24 November 2011
- ISBN 9780199737048
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages384 pages
- Size 232x157x32 mm
- Weight 638 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 34 hts 0
Categories
Short description:
Examines "Burned Bridge," the intersection between two sister cities in East and West Germany, and reveals how the daily adjustments of anxious residents shaped the barrier that divided them.
MoreLong description:
The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 shocked the world. Ever since, the image of this impenetrable barrier between East and West, imposed by communism, has been a central symbol of the Cold War.
Based on vast research in untapped archival, oral, and private sources, Burned Bridge reveals the hidden origins of the Iron Curtain, presenting it in a startling new light. Historian Edith Sheffer's unprecedented, in-depth account focuses on Burned Bridge—the intersection between two sister cities, Sonneberg and Neustadt bei Coburg, Germany's largest divided population outside Berlin. Sheffer demonstrates that as Soviet and American forces occupied each city after the
Second World War, townspeople who historically had much in common quickly formed opposing interests and identities. The border walled off irreconcilable realities: the differences of freedom and captivity, rich and poor, peace and bloodshed, and past and present. Sheffer describes how smuggling, kidnapping, rape,
and killing in the early postwar years led citizens to demand greater border control on both sides—long before East Germany fortified its 1,393 kilometer border with West Germany. It was in fact the American military that built the first barriers at Burned Bridge, which preceded East Germany's borderland crackdown by many years. Indeed, Sheffer shows that the physical border between East and West was not simply imposed by Cold War superpowers, but was in some part an improvised outgrowth of an
anxious postwar society.
Ultimately, a wall of the mind shaped the wall on the ground. East and West Germans became part of, and helped perpetuate, the barriers that divided them. From the end of World War II through two decades of reunification, Sheffer traces divisions at Burned Bridge with sharp insight and compassion, presenting a stunning portrait of the Cold War on a human scale.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Peter Schneider
Introduction
Part One: Demarcation Line, 1945-1952
Foundations: Burned Bridge
Insecurity: Border Mayhem
Inequality: Economic Divides
Kickoff: Political Skirmishing
Part Two: "Living Wall," 1952-1961
Shock: Border Closure and Deportation
Shift: Everyday Boundaries
Surveillance: Individual Controls
Part Three: Iron Curtain, 1961-1989
Home: Life in the Prohibited Zone
Fault Line: Life in the Fortifications
Disconnect: East-West Relations
Epilogue: New Divides
Notes
Bibliography
y
Appendices
