Ever since I started researching my honeymoon trip to Europe, I’ve become interested in European history. As someone who also enjoys following politics, I’ve also taken an interest in how Russia affects the political and strategic motivations of nations. These two interests have merged into a fascination with Cold War history. No other country, no other city, represents the Cold War than Berlin, Germany. The city split between the Allies at the end of World War II came to symbolize the struggle of East versus West, Capitalism versus Communism. France, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union divided up Germany into East and West. The nations also split Berlin, and as the ideologies clashed, the city paid the price. Eventually, the Berlin Wall is erected, and the famous crossing in the American section of Berlin takes its place in history. Checkpoint Charlie served as the gateway between capitalist West Berlin and communist East Berlin. In Iain MacGregor’s Checkpoint Charlie the history of this contentious crossing comes alive. MacGregor explores the conflict through the people that inhabited the city, that crossed the border, that lived on the front line of the Cold War.
TL;DR
Iain MacGregor’s Checkpoint Charlie tracks the history of the Berlin Wall through the people that lived it. This history is rooted in the lives that built, crossed, and brought down the barrier. Highly recommended for history buffs.
From the Publisher
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.
Review: Checkpoint Charlie
Iain MacGregor spans the end of World War II to the 90s to show how Berlin split and reunited. In turn, he’s told a story about a very specific portion of the city and the people who lived and worked close to it. The book starts with a border crossing, and we get to see how high tensions were. Checkpoint Charlie follows the border from a semi-open stop to the chaos of the first barrier to the horrors of death alley to finally the collapse and the Soviet soldiers brave decision to not respond with force. But MacGregor puts more than just a chronological retelling of events. He highlights various groups and individuals unique to this situation. For example, he talks about the special force soldiers who basically signed up for a suicide mission in the event of World War III; or Estrongo Nachama, a Jewish cantor, who served and helped the East German Jews survive.
Liaison Missions
I loved this book; it’s filled with excellent details, narratives, and accounts. If I had to pick my favorite section, it would be the chapter describing the various liaison missions for France, Britain, and the U.S. Basically, these were legal, acknowledged spies who operated on the other side of the border. Their missions do not sound like what fiction has taught us spies do, but those missions sound as wild, as dangerous, and as vital to winning the Cold War. To oversimplify, these soldiers were tourists seeking out military information to take pictures of, and to record movements. But that doesn’t convey the danger to which they were subjected.
The chapter dedicated to Major Arthur Nicholson, Jr. deeply affected me. It brought home not only the dangers of the liaison missions but how a single life moves nations. Major Nicholson gave his life for the U.S. nation, and his sacrifice gets an entire chapter here. MacGregor uses the chapter to show the U.S. played the murder to its advantage politically but also how that strategy constrained the U.S. I found fascinating how MacGregor connected the soldier level to national strategy. I wish the book had more of this analysis.
More Politics, Please
The view for most of the book is on the ground. We get a little of the national strategies, but I would have liked more. For example in the chapter on tunnels, how did the Eastern German and Soviet governments try to stop tunneling, other than hoping to discover the escapees? Was it more than a local nuisance? I enjoyed the times that MacGregor connected the local to the global, but I wanted more. His interest was more the people up front and center. Nevertheless, the actions at the border drove national policy. This is not a knock; I just enjoyed seeing the picture from far away as well as up close.
Historical Method
While we do get some of the larger consequences of the Cold War, the hyper focus on the Berlin border remains consistent throughout. Bystanders, guards, soldiers, and diplomats all get equal treatment in the book to give a holistic view of the era. The book had a western bias, though, as many of the interviews come from West Germans. It would have been interesting to get more of the Eastern view. But much of the narrative is built on interviews and firsthand accounts. So, I wonder if it was more difficult to get people who looked back on that time positively.
Also, with interviews, we have to recognize that memories change. But I believe that MacGregor did enough research to blend the interviews in naturally. The quotes add to the tension and immediacy of the moments. While MacGregor is able to describe the horror of trying to escape the East, the interviews drive home that horror much more effectively.
Conclusion
Iain MacGregor’s Checkpoint Charlie lays out the history of the border between East and West Berlin in all too human terms. This account is well research, packed with historical info, and full of first hand accounts. This book appeals to anyone interested in the history of the Cold War or the city of Berlin. It’s a must for understanding the unique time that was the Cold War.
Checkpoint Charlie is available from Scribner on November 5th, 2019.