LibGuides: Cold War: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall

Print Books: (Follow the links to find out more about the books!)

The Idea of a United Europe: political, economic, and cultural integration since the fall of the Berlin Wall by Jamal Shahin (Editor); Michael Wintle (Editor)
Call Number: JN30 .I26 2000 (Gumberg 3rd floor)

The Idea of a United Europe examines the issues thrown up by the reintegration of Europe since 1989-90 through the primary perspective of European identity. Political economy here joins contemporary history: European studies specialists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands review Europe's progress, now that a decade has passed since the end of the Cold War. Differences within Europe and unifying factors are both assessed in the course of this quest to examine what 'Europe' has become and is becoming at the turn of the millennium.
A Generation Divided: German children and the Berlin wall by Thomas Davey
Call Number: HQ792.G3 D38 1987 (Gumberg 3rd floor)

Thomas Davey conducted interviews with children both sides of the Wall, participated in their daily lives, collected their drawings, talked with their teachers and families and grew aware of just how attentive children can be to moral and political subtleties of national life. The result is a revealing and dramatic portrait of a young generation coming to terms with complex national and historical circumstances of the two cites of East and West Berlin.

eBooks: (Note: You will have to enter your MultiPass credentials to access these off-campus.)

The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall by Mary Elise Sarotte

On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall--infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe--seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime--nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident.
1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe by Mary Elise Sarotte

1989 explores the momentous events following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the effects they have had on our world ever since. Based on documents, interviews, and television broadcasts from Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow, and a dozen other locations, 1989 describes how Germany unified, NATO expansion began, and Russia got left on the periphery of the new Europe.

Book Chapters: (Note: You will have to enter your MultiPass credentials to access these off-campus.)

"Memories of 1945 and 1963: American Television Coverage of the End of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989"
Chapter 11 from "Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age" by David Culbert
"Continuity and Discontinuity of East German Identity Following the Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Case Study"
Chapter 6 from "Political Transition: Politics and Cultures" by Molly Andrews
"1960–1961: Ulbricht, Khrushchev, and the Berlin Wall"
Chapter 4 from "Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961" by Hope M. Harrison

Resources from the Web

"The Berlin Wall was erected in September 1961 to prevent the outflow of skilled manpower from the German Democratic Republic and other Soviet bloc countries into the Western-controlled sectors of the city and thence into the West as a whole. It came to symbolize the Cold War and the rigid division of Europe into two armed camps. Its removal in November 1989 has precisely the opposite implications, culminating in German unification and the end of the Cold War." -The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics

Berlin Wall
From Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction
Berlin Wall Destruction
From the Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice

An aerial view of the Berlin Wall, showing its many layers, 1986.

Source: Noir, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

A West German man uses a hammer and chisel to chip off a piece of the Berlin Wall as a souvenir in November 1989.

Source: Dept. of Defense, public domain.