The photos and captions at the start of each chapter should give you a good grounding in what led up to the Berlin Wall being planned in secret and erected so suddenly—Soviet Russians taking over Eastern Europe after World War II; their attempts to push out American troops through the 1948–49 Berlin Blockade; their crushing the 1953 protests by East Berlin workers begging for decent wages, working conditions, and the right to vote; the escalating arms race; the tension between JFK and Khrushchev; and the flood of East Germans trying to escape the tyranny of communism.
A little more about Nikita Khrushchev, Russia’s combative leader from 1953 to 1964: a disconcerting bundle of bombast and contradictions, Khrushchev would lead Russia’s de-Stalinization after the dictator’s death. Yet he also suppressed the Ukraine’s attempts at independence, crushed Hungary’s revolt in 1956 (killing twenty-five hundred Hungarians during street fighting), and authorized the Berlin Wall. He would allow the printing of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, an unblinking look at the horrors of Soviet Gulag camps, but send nuclear missiles to Cuba to secure first-strike dominance over the United States.
Khrushchev pushed Russia into modern global politics by building up Soviet technology that resulted in his country’s launch of the first satellite (Sputnik) as well as the first dog, first man, and first woman into space. At the same time he ordered secret surveillance and barbaric questioning of his people, plus clandestine disinformation campaigns to sow division within the United States. He didn’t hide his contempt for JFK or his hatred of Nixon and bragged about manipulating the outcome of our 1960 presidential election. In 1956, he famously threatened, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.”
Vladimir Putin, who leads today’s Russia—the nation credibly reported by all seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies and the Senate Intelligence Committee to have interfered in our 2016 presidential election—seems to adhere to Khrushchev’s philosophy that ginning up conspiracy theories and smear campaigns will unravel a rival society. Putin was well schooled in such tactics, having served as a KGB secret police officer for fifteen years. Stationed in East Germany for six of those years, Putin worked with the Stasi to monitor the thoughts and movement of its citizens, arrest dissenters, and recruit informers to steal Western technology and NATO military secrets. When Putin rose to power in 2000, Russian dissident writer Felix Svetov said he was a typical KGB type. “If the snow is falling,” said Svetov, “they will calmly tell you the sun is shining.”
Independently reported and corroborated truth, a free press, individuality and self-expression, the dignity of self-direction, respect for others and differing views—these are all liberties that communist regimes fear, because such freedom of thought exposes the lies of political fanaticism and authoritarian leaders. East Germany, under the thumb of Soviet Russia, sought to stop any trickle of such “poison.” Music was the most dangerous, because it could float free through the air on radio waves into communist territory. The GDR waged war on what its party leaders decried as decadent Western songs, the “wiggle-hip” and dangerous “free dancing” presented by rock ’n’ roll singers like Elvis Presley. The GDR’s weapons ranged from ordering the creation and teaching of the Lipsi dance to prosecuting youth like Matthias for Kulturbarbarei—a charge akin in seriousness to sedition—for the innocent and age-old teenage desire to listen to music celebrating youth and perhaps advocating a little rebellion against adult authority or the status quo.
For many behind the Iron Curtain, AFN (the American Forces Network) and RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) were lifelines to the outside world, providing news, American music, and radio dramas, a proverbial window into a world they were supposed to hate and fear. RIAS broadcast carefully crafted Voice of America programs, while AFN’s primary function was to provide entertainment for American servicemen and their families. But AFN commentators were well aware that many other people were listening as well.
Starting in 1956, the State Department sent American performing artists into the Soviet Bloc and underdeveloped countries at risk of falling into communism, calling it “cultural diplomacy.” The hope was that concerts by jazz legends Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Dave Brubeck would spread firsthand awareness and appreciation of American music to lands saturated with anti-America rhetoric. The State Department also believed these performances would combat overseas perceptions of America as racist, since these groups were integrated and jazz music was such a wondrous combination of diverse American musical influences. Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, for instance, performed in Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Greece. An American ambassador reported, “We could have built a tank for the cost of this tour, but you can’t get as much goodwill out of a tank as you can out of Dizzy Gillespie’s band.”
The featured musicians often had more complicated experiences on these tours, however, painfully aware that while they were being sent out to improve the United States’ image regarding civil rights, racism prevailed back home. Celebrated in Ghana as a demigod when he played there, Armstrong had a very public run-in with President Eisenhower over Ike’s handling of school integration during the 1957 Little Rock Crisis at Central High School. In 1962, Dave and Iola Brubeck wrote a satirical musical, The Real Ambassadors, and Armstrong sang anguished lyrics, asking: If all are made in the image of Thee, could Thou perchance a zebra be?
I hope that you, as readers, will take from Drew and Matthias’s story the importance of thinking for yourselves, of listening and opening up your hearts to others who differ from you, and of our responsibility as a free people to not simply stand by when witnessing others advocating for their rights, whether in a foreign nation or in our own. I hope the cousins’ hard-won friendship helps you marvel at the astounding resilience of the human spirit, our longing to imagine and to cry out against darkness. The saga of the Berlin Wall proves free speech and the arts can indeed change minds and chip away at barriers.
Use your voice. We’ll be listening.
Acknowledgments
As always, if you find value in this novel, it has everything to do with my adult children, Megan and Peter, who are themselves professional creative artists. Their ideas, questions, and sensitivity to hard issues and the conflicting nuances within the human spirit, plus their astute edits of my drafts, honed the narrative’s voice, pacing, clarity, breadth, and themes. Megan also took on the enormous task of researching and then tracking down the most compelling images to punctuate and heighten the book’s impact. Peter helped keep my teenage boy protagonists authentic—aggravating and endearing, blustery and vulnerable.
I’m very grateful for Elise Howard’s courage in publishing a highly researched novel for teens on such a serious, complicated era, and her meticulous editing that made it far better. Thanks, too, to Laura Williams, for her masterful art direction and jacket design; Kayla Escobedo, for deft handling of the photo essay’s complex material; Ashley Mason, for painstaking attention to detail; and Susan Schulman, for her literary taste and belief in my voice.
George Gilmore and Jim Branson graciously spent hours talking with me about their memories of being “military brats” in Berlin in the early 1960s and led me to other wondrously rich first-person resources. I honestly would not have been able to write this novel without their generosity and vast knowledge. Thanks, as well, to Daniel Grave, a talented theater artist and Berliner, who went to multiple museums and archives to research the city during the Cold War for me.
Selected Sources
There are reams of academic studies of the Cold War, but I found these to be particularly accessible and immediate in detail:
Books
Agee, Joel. Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1975.
Cates, Curtis. The Ides of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis 1961. New York: M. Evans and
Company, Inc., 1978.
Donner, Jorn. Report from Berlin. Translated by Albin T. Anderson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.
Gilmore, George H., Sr. A Cold War Soldier. A memoir of service in West Berlin and elsewhere. Self published: July 2005
Kempe, Frederick. Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth. New York: Berkley Press, 2011.
Lowe, Yoshika Lofti, and Trisha A. Lindsey, editors. Cold War Memories: A Retrospective on Living in Berlin. Middletown, DE: Brats Overseas Books, 2014.
Taylor, Frederick. The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961–1989. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.
Article
Bainbridge, John. “Die Mauer: the Early Days of the Berlin Wall.” The New Yorker, October 19, 1962.
Documentaries
Bellows, Susan, dir. American Experience: JFK. PBS, American Experience Films, 2013.
Berkeley, Hugo, dir. The Jazz Ambassadors. BBC, Normal Life Pictures, Antelope South Limited, Thirteen Productions LLC, Arte, and ZDF, 2018.
Isaacs, Jeremy, prod. The Cold War. CNN and BBC-2, 1998.
Musil, Donna, dir. BRATS: Our Journey Home. Brats without Borders, 2005.
Drama Series
Dierbach, Alexander, dir. Line of Separation (Tannbach). ZDF miniseries, 2015. (in German)
Feature Films (PG-13)
Hadrich, Rolf, dir. Stop Train 349. Allied Artists Pictures, 1963.
Hamilton, Guy, dir. Funeral in Berlin. Paramount Pictures, 1966.
Herbig, Michael Bully, dir. Balloon. Distrib Films, 2020. (in German)
Johnson, Nunnally, dir. Night People. 20th Century Fox, 1954.
Michaels, Richard, dir. Berlin Tunnel 21. CBS-TV Movie, 1981.
Reed, Carol, dir. The Man Between. United Artists, 1953.
Ricciarelli, Giulio, dir. Labyrinth of Lies. Claussen Wöbke Putz Filmproduktion, 2015. (in German)
Spielberg, Steven, dir. Bridge of Spies. DreamWorks Pictures, 2016.
Photo Credits
Prologue
Page x: Granger Historical Picture Archive; page xi (top): Shawshots / Alamy Stock Photo; page xi (bottom): University of Iowa; page xiii: Alamy Stock Photo; page xiv (top): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page xiv (bottom): imageBROKER / Alamy Stock Photo; page xv (top left): National Archives; page xv (bottom): INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 1
Page xviii (bottom): The Enquirer / Bob Free
Chapter 2
Page 18: National Archives; page 19 (top left): Photo by Robert Schlesinger, dpa Picture Alliance archive / Alamy Stock Photo; page 19 (top right): NATO; page 19 (bottom): INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo; page 20 (top): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 20 (bottom left): INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo; page 20 (bottom right): Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 3
Page 38: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo; page 39 (top): World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; page 40: Washington Evening Star / DC Public Libraries
Chapter 4
Page 65 (bottom): MARKA / Alamy Stock Photo; page 66: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 5
Page 94: United Artists / Allstar Picture Library Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo; page 95 (top): Florida State Library Archives; page 95 (bottom): Keystone Press / Alamy Stock Photo; page 96 (top): The Advertising Archives / Alamy Stock Photo; page 96 (bottom): Drew Gardner / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 6
Page 116: Universal Images Group North America LLC / Alamy Stock Photo; page 117 (top): National Archives; page 117 (bottom): Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo; page 118: Everett Collection, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 7
Page 143 (bottom): Library of Congress; page 144: Classic Stock / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 8
Page 167: NASA Archive / Alamy Stock Photo; page 168 (top): Chris Willson / Alamy Stock Photo; page 168 (bottom): PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 9
Page 190 (top): Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo; page 190 (bottom): Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo; page 191 (top): State Historical Society of Missouri / Digital Public Library of America; page 191 (bottom): Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo; page 192 (bottom): Library of Congress
Chapter 10
Page 210 (top): INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo; page 211: NASA; page 212 (top): Everett Collection Historical, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo; page 212 (bottom right): Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 11
Page 234: Keystone Press / Alamy Stock Photo; page 235: Library of Congress; page 236 (top): RGR Collection / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 12
Page 260 (top): Werner Kreusch, Associated Press; page 261 (top): NATO; page 262 (top): Library of Congress; page 262 (bottom): Album / Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 13
Page 284: dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 285: Hum Images / Alamy Stock Photo; page 286: dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 287 (top): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 287 (bottom left): National Archives; page 287 (bottom right): National Archives; page 288: CIA; page 289: National Archives; page 290: Patrice Habans, Paris Match / Getty Images
Epilogue
Page 320 (top): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 320 (bottom left): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 320 (bottom right): Imago Europe Collection / Alamy Stock Photo; page 321 (top left): National Archives; page 321 (top right): Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo; page 321 (bottom): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo; page 322 (top): dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
L.M. Elliott was an award-winning magazine journalist in Washington, D.C., before becoming a New York Times bestselling author of historical and biographical young adult novels. Her works include Under a War-Torn Sky, Suspect Red, and Hamilton and Peggy.
Also by L. M. Elliott
Suspect Red
Under a War-Torn Sky
A Troubled Peace
Across a War-Tossed Sea
Hamilton and Peggy! A Revolutionary Friendship
Give Me Liberty
Da Vinci’s Tiger
Published by Algonquin Young Readers
an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
Text © 2021 by L. M. Elliott.
Photo essay © 2021 by Megan Behm.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Kayla E.
This book is a work of fiction. While the historic, contextual facts of 1960–1961 and the Berlin Wall are real, the characters and their dialogue in this novel are products of the author’s imagination.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.
ISBN 9781643752310 (ebook)
Walls Page 23
