Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

by Iain MacGregor, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart (Read by)

Overview

A powerful, fascinating, and groundbreaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States confronted the USSR during the Cold War.

East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, an eleven-foot-high barrier that consisted of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least five thousand people attempted to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it.

In November 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades.

As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the essence of the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781508297086
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

As an editor and publisher of nonfiction, Iain MacGregor has over twenty-five years’ experience of working with authors such as Jonathan Fenby, Simon Schama, and Max Hastings, to name but a very few. He is the author of To Hell on a Bike—Riding Paris–Roubaix, The Toughest Race in Cycling and Checkpoint Charlie.

Dugald Bruce-Lockhart trained for a career in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre among others. Since 1998 he has worked as an actor with Propeller, an all-male theater company, of which he is now an associate director. He is an associate of the Teatre Akadèmia Theatre Company in Barcelona and has directed Romeo and Juliet and As You Like it in Catalan, with new translations by Miqel Desclot. He teaches and directs at drama schools in London including the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, LAMDA and Italia Conti.

Editorial Reviews

10/18/2019

The Berlin Wall divided Germany for 28 years, standing as the most potent symbol of the Cold War. Thirty years since its fall, little remains of the barrier, but its specter serves as a reminder of what happens when fear, mistrust, oppression, and paranoia dominate the relationships among countries. Editor and publisher MacGregor brilliantly captures the events that led to the creation of the wall and the people who successfully escaped East Germany. Fans of intrigue will delight in his accounts of the military personnel and journalists who regularly crossed Checkpoint Charlie, which was first set up in August 1961 and eventually became the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie late became the place of a standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States in October 1961. In November 1989, East German leadership allowed free passage of its citizens into West Berlin for the first time in decade; MacGregor captures how other countries reacted, and the care taken to ensure that this volatile situation proceeded peacefully. VERDICT A fascinating take on the importance of level-headed people and international agreements working together to manage tense geopolitical situations.—Beth Dalton, Littleton, CO

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