"Once upon a time behind the Berlin Wall..." takes you on David Frohriep's emotional and cultural rollercoaster ride from East to West: as a child and teenager in communist Germany with a first unexpected adventure in New York and a dramatic return to East Germany; escape to West-Berlin; diplomat in reunified Germany; women and a career in NYC, London and Paris; and a great love for Europe. David explores what it means to be "free", discovering new ways of living and escaping from a few risky situations along the way. Through these ten personal stories, we find out how he pursues his dream to find professional fulfillment and personal happiness.
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. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
The real life stories of eight East Germans caught up in the dramatic transition from Communism to Capitalism by the fall of the Berlin Wall - and what they feel about life after the Wall.
Contradicting assumptions that disco albums are shallow and packed with filler, Donna Summer's double album Once Upon A Time stands out as a piece that delivers on its promise of an immaculately crafted journey from start to finish. A new interpretation of the Cinderella story, it is set in the then contemporary world of New York disco and takes the listener on a journey from urban isolation and deep despair to joy and vindication, all filtered through the mind of its naïve and fantasy-prone protagonist. As well as charting the production of the album within the legendary Munich Machine in Germany, this book digs deep into the album's rich themes and subtexts. Approaching the book from inventive angles, the four essays within the book act as a prism connecting the reader to the classical aspirations of Eurodisco, the history of the black fairy tale and a queer knowledge that reads Summer's Cinderella tale in some surprising ways.
Thomas Douglas Adelman looks back at an eventful life in this engaging memoir about growing up in a Jewish family and becoming a successful producer and director. Born in 1954, he grew up on the Upper East Side of New York City in an upper-middle-class family with the normal dysfunction that you find in all families. Notably, his family was Jewish but celebrated Christmas—although he never could figure out why. His father was a businessman passionate about politics, and his mother was an actress in the forties. When they met, it was love at first sight. The author looks back at his adventures growing up, including being thrown out of private schools as a boy and rubbing elbows with notable people. He also looks back at how he made his way into the entertainment industry, producing, directing, and working on numerous films and projects and ultimately launching his own company. Join the author as he looks back at his childhood, adult life, and his rise to the top of the entertainment industry.
A selection from The Magic Lantern, Timothy Garton Ash’s classic first-person history of the Revolution of ’89 and the end of the Cold War—an on-the-ground glimpse of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “In the beginning was the Wall itself.” So writes matchless chronicler and observer Timothy Garton Ash on the strange life and stranger death of the Wall that divided two worlds. Garton Ash takes the reader with him as he walks through the Wall and across no-man’s land in early November of 1989, where as recently as that February a man attempting to cross had been shot dead. But November 9 ushers in a new world. Garton Ash introduces us to the East Berliners lining up for the “greeting money” offered at banks; the newfound wanderers looking for the ferry to England; and the chaotic, intoxicating political atmosphere sweeping through the reunited city. This is a vivid and enduring picture of a defining moment in history, when a wall came tumbling down. An eBook short.
This book is a representative history of East German film culture from 1946 to the present, examining both DEFA's celebrated classics and the most acclaimed post-unification feature films by East German directors. As Berghahn shows, East German cinema occupies an ambivalent position between German national cinema on the one hand and East European and Soviet cinema on the other. It includes a wide-ranging exploration of post-unification cinema from East Germany, including cult films such as Sun Alley and Goodbye, Lenin! and provides contextualized readings of twenty significant films, referencing one hundred and ninety East German films in total, along with numerous West German and East European classics.
In the Wall Jumper, real people cross the Wall not to defect but to quarrel with their lovers, see Hollywood movies, and sometimes just because they can't help themselves—the Wall has divided their emotions as much as it has their country.
