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Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Sheffer, Edith, author.

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

Publication Info. New York : Oxford University Press, [2011]
©2011

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xvii, 357 pages) : illustrations, maps
Physical Medium polychrome.
Description data file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-342) and index.
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.
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.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Language English.
Subject Germany (East) -- Relations -- Germany (West)
Germany (East)
Relations.
Germany (West)
Germany (West) -- Relations -- Germany (East)
Neustadt bei Coburg (Germany) -- History -- 20th century.
Sonneberg (Thuringia, Germany) -- History -- 20th century.
Boundaries -- Social aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century.
Boundaries -- Social aspects.
History.
Chronological Term 20th century
Subject Boundaries.
Germany -- History -- 1945-1990.
Chronological Term 1945-1990
Subject Germany.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Germany.
International relations.
Germany -- Neustadt bei Coburg.
Germany -- Sonneberg (Thuringia)
Chronological Term 1900-1999
Genre/Form Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Sheffer, Edith. Burned Bridge. New York : Oxford University Press, ©2011 9780199737048 (DLC) 2011005112 (OCoLC)701622846
ISBN 9780199876204 (electronic book)
0199876207 (electronic book)
9781280594793 (MyiLibrary)
1280594799
9780199911615 (electronic book)
0199911614 (electronic book)
9780199737048
0199737045
9786613624628
6613624624