Title Burned Bridge : how East and West Germans made the Iron Curtain / Edith Sheffer ; foreword by Peter Schneider

Published New York : Oxford University Press, ©2011

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 357 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents Foundations : Burned Bridge -- Insecurity : border mayhem -- Inequality : economic divides -- Kickoff : political skirmishing -- Shock : border closure and deportation -- Shift : everyday boundaries -- Surveillance : individual controls -- Home : life in the prohibited zone -- Fault line : life in the fortifications -- Disconnect : East-West relations -- Epilogue : new divides Summary The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 shocked the world. Ever since, the image of this impenetrable barrier has been a central symbol of the Cold War. Based on vast research in untapped archival, oral, and private sources, this book reveals the hidden origins of the Iron Curtain, presenting it in a startling new light. Historian Edith Sheffer's in-depth account focuses on 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. 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. Indeed, Sheffer shows that the physical border was not simply imposed by Cold War superpowers, but was in some part an improvised outgrowth of an anxious postwar society.--From publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-342) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Boundaries -- Social aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century HISTORY -- Europe -- Germany. Boundaries -- Social aspects International relations SUBJECT Germany (East) -- Relations -- Germany (West) Germany (West) -- Relations -- Germany (East) Neustadt bei Coburg (Germany) -- History -- 20th century Sonneberg (Thuringia, Germany) -- History -- 20th century Germany -- History -- 1945-1990. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh91001545 Subject Germany Germany (East) Germany -- Neustadt bei Coburg Germany -- Sonneberg (Thuringia) Germany (West) Genre/Form Electronic books History Form Electronic book LC no. 2011005112 ISBN 9780199876204 0199876207 9781280594793 1280594799 9780199911615 0199911614 9786613624628 6613624624

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