For many, the Berlin Wall is one of the most important symbols of the Cold War. It divided Europe into two completely different worlds. Helena Merriman tells the stories of people who have experienced this tear firsthand.
On August 13, 1961, Berliners woke up in a city divided by a wall. Although it had been the subject of disputes between the West and the Soviet Union since the end of the war until then it had been easy to get to the West. Many people took advantage of this and freely moved to the more affluent and free part of the city.
The East German authorities initially believed that the citizens could be retained with a vision of a bright future. It turned out to be impossible, socialism did not live up to its promises, and "Europe's most American city" (West Berlin) struck the eyes of the inhabitants of the unleavened, eastern part. The more so that after Stalin's death, the Stalinist regime did not ease at all. The mass exodus began to threaten not only the reputation of the new system but also the economy of the GDR. Then the leader of the state - Walter Ulbricht - decided to build a wall. The "Iron Curtain" that Winston Churchill spoke of 15 years earlier has become a fact.
Cut by a wall and a cordon of soldiers, Berlin - a city in the very center of Europe - was the most important flashpoint during the Cold War. This is the only such place, in a world dominated by two ideologically hostile superpowers, where citizens of both realities could see each other through the windows and over the stone wall of wall.
The East German authorities could not change the fact that the eyes of the international community were on this point. Despite attempts to completely cut off, brick windows and doors in tenement houses, and above all to build a heavily guarded wall, entanglements and guard towers, everything that happened on the border was closely watched. Journalists from West Berlin photographed and filmed escapes, people from East Berlin could see life on the other side with the naked eye or through binoculars. For the West, the wall was an expression of the failure of the communist utopia, proof of the internal weakness of the enemy, but in East Berlin, it was also read as a failure of the West.
The main axis of the book is the biography of one of the constructors of the title tunnel - Joachim Rudolf. After the border between East and West Berlin was closed, he developed an escape plan with a friend. He managed to get to West Berlin. Later that year, he joined a group that planned tunnels under the city and helped others escape.
Joachim is not the only hero of the story. The author brings closer the fate of people entangled in this strange political system. Escaping to the West was not just about crossing the border. There were those whom the secret services on both sides of the Iron Curtain tried to recruit or recruited. Many also died – killed by border guards or as a result of injuries, drownings, and other accidents. People jumped from the windows of tenement houses, jumped over barbed wire fences, broke through the wall, and tried to swim across the river. There have even been several attempts (some successful) to escape by balloon. There were also many attempts to escape through the tunnels. Not all of them turned out to be successful. The digging took a long time, and the inexperienced escapees were unable to protect the structure from flooding or collapsing.
Joachim and his colleagues set about a task in which they had no experience. Despite this, they managed to use the knowledge from engineering studies. Watching reports of failed and collapsed tunnels on television, they also tried not to repeat the mistakes of others. It wasn't entirely without problems. The first tunnel 29 had to be abandoned due to a pipe leak. They also met with betrayal, and one of the participants ended up in prison on the eastern side for two years.
However, the work of students building a passage near Berlin was publicized in the West. Who financed the construction of the tunnel? How did the fate of the heroes go? Everything the reader will learn from Merriman's book.
"Tunnel 29" is not only fictionalized biography of Berliners fleeing to the West. The author placed the whole thing in a broader historical context. Readers will learn about the most important officials, the circumstances surrounding the creation of the wall, and the working methods of the infamous STASI secret police. They will learn about the relations between the US and the USSR and what role the events that took place in Berlin played.
A story told in very colorful language. Personal experiences and memories are presented in a tangible amount of detail. At the same time, it is a book of high substantive value, full of reliable information and true testimonies.
"Tunnel 29" is a fascinating story about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who outsmarted the regime of Walter Ulbricht. It is also a story about a city that found itself in the center of Cold War rivalry. It was both the most heavily guarded and the weakest point separating the East from the West. KronikiDziejow.pl is the media patron of the book.
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Helena Merriman is an award-winning British journalist. She worked as a foreign correspondent in many places around the world, including Egypt, Jerusalem, Washington. She reported on such events as the uprising in Cairo, protests in Yemen and the resistance movement in Libya. "Tunnel 29" was initially created in the form of a 10-episode podcast broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 channel. It has reached 3 million listeners and gained a wide audience around the world. The book was first published in English in 2021.
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