The Year that Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall

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A Story of War and Reconciliation. Do you like history brought to life? The true story of a young woman growing up in Nazi Germany. The Rose and the Crane. Scribner; 1st Edition edition September 8, Language: Page 1 of 1 Start Over Page 1 of 1. The video content is inappropriate. The video content is misleading. The ad is too long. The ad does not play. The ad does not inform my purchase. The video does not play. There is too much buffering. The audio is poor or missing.

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There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. If you weren't paying close attention, the fall of the Berlin Wall in November came as a complete surprise. If you weren't paying close attention, you'd believe it came as the result of Ronald Reagan's famous exhortation when visiting Berlin in , "Mr. That was not the case, it turns out. His behind-the-scenes reporting of what actually took place makes for an illuminating story.

Meyer couldn't believe his good fortune when Newsweek asked him to cover Eastern Europe in the summer of He sensed change was afoot and was stunned like everyone else when change--huge change--came a year later at lightning speed.

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From the outside, it appeared Eastern Europe's long-repressed citizens, deeply frustrated by poverty, lack of freedom, and corrupt leadership, rose up en masse and overthrew their communist overlords. It makes for an inspiring story, but like many inspiring stories, it's not entirely accurate. Change would not have been possible had not Mikhail Gorbachev become general secretary of the communist party in , and relaxed the Soviet grip on Eastern Bloc countries.

When that happened, the Cold War thaw began. The thaw was felt first in Hungary, by a small band of party leaders East European buccaneers, Meyer calls them who saw their chance to end communism and free their fellow countrymen, not only in Hungary but across the East bloc. Theirs is the great untold story of At first they tested the water with talk of relaxing Soviet policies in their country, knowing full well it could mean the secret police knocking at their door in the middle of the night, being arrested and never seen again.

Book Review: 'The Year That Changed the World' by Michael Meyer

When that didn't happen, they asked Gorbachev to remove the Soviet nuclear missiles in their country. Then they talked of opening a gate in the fence that separated communist Hungary from democratic Austria. When Moscow failed to respond, they opened the gate. Then, incredibly, East Germans vacationing in Hungary began exiting to the West through the gate. When Moscow still did nothing, East Germans by the thousands entered Hungary and escaped to freedom.

In Poland, meanwhile, free elections ousted the communist old guard, much to their dismay. They had permitted free elections believing Polish citizens would never dream of dispensing with communism and all it offered: It was the other half of the equation they hadn't considered: With Moscow strangely silent, in East Germany, the communists sensed the end might be near.

The hard-liners continued appealing to Moscow for help, but none was forthcoming. With East Berliners fleeing by the thousands, the city became a ghost town. Hospitals no longer had doctors, schools no longer had teachers, and factories no longer had skilled workers.

Communist authorities then considered opening a gate in the Berlin Wall, provided East German citizens applied in advance, had the necessary papers properly stamped and signed, and agreed to return. When word got out that the Berlin Wall might open, crowds gathered in the streets near the Wall. At first there were only a few, then hundreds, then thousands, repeatedly chanting, "Open the gates!

Panicky calls flew from checkpoints up and down the Wall to the Interior Ministry, to no avail. Officials then dialed the Politburo, but no one answered. When rumors began to circulate that a gate had opened further to the north, the commanding officer shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, Why not?

It was the shrug that changed the world. In that moment, at precisely Thirty days later, when Czechoslovakia ousted its communists leaders, in what was called "The Velvet Revolution," the Iron Curtain was no more, too. Without him, the history of Eastern Europe and the end of communism would have been vastly different. Bush Bush 41 for showing restraint.

Bush 43's team totally misread the meaning of what had happened, believing the Soviet collapse was as a result of pressure from the West. Once the containing pressure of the Soviet system was lifted by Mikhail Gorbachev, they essentially imploded," Meyer writes. For it was a straight line from the fantasy of Cold War victory to the invasion of Iraq.

Convinced that freedom could be won there as easily as it was in Eastern Europe, and that it need only confront the tyrant, the Bush administration scarcely bothered to plan for the aftermath of the war. The result was a loss of lives and fortune that will heavily weigh for decades to come. Historians will be turning to it for decades to come.

Great book written by a man who was there, but with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight.

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The year was A wall was about to fall in Berlin, but how did it happen? Read this book for the rest of the story. The author knew some of the key individuals on the East side of the wall.

Book Review: 'The Year That Changed the World' by Michael Meyer

This book is a great read, and I strongly recommend it. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! Michael Meyer, who was there at the time as a Newsweek bureau chief, begs to differ. In this extraordinarily compelling account of the revolutions that roiled Eastern Europe in , he shows that American intransigence was only one of many factors that provoked world-shaking change. Meyer draws together breathtakingly vivid, on-the-ground accounts of the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the stealth opening of the Hungarian border, the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the collapse of the infamous wall in Berlin.

But the most important events, Meyer contends, occurred secretly, in the heroic stands taken by individuals in the thick of the struggle, leaders such as poet and playwright Vaclav Havel in Prague; the Baltic shipwright Lech Walesa; the quietly determined reform prime minister in Budapest, Miklos Nemeth; and the man who privately realized that his empire was already lost, and decided -- with courage and intelligence -- to let it go in peace,Soviet general secretary of the communist party, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reporting for Newsweek from the frontlines in Eastern Europe, Meyer spoke to these players and countless others. Alongside their deliberate interventions were also the happenstance and human error of history that are always present when events accelerate to breakneck speed.

The Year That Changed The World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall

The policy was to be implemented "ab sofort"--"immediately. The East German people took "sofort" to mean "now. A frightened border guard, lacking guidance, waited a few hours and then opened the sluice gates to a torrent of humanity. In an instant the wall fell, and so, too, did the logic of East Germany. What was supposed to have been managed reform became instead a chaotic revolution of people walking. Krenz, who had hoped to salvage some elements of socialism, lost control of events when Easterners crossed to the other side.

History pivoted on the misinterpretation of a word. Krenz called it a "botch. Chief among them was Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth, a communist who decided that communism did not work and quietly conspired to destroy it.


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In contrast to Czechoslovakia and East Germany, Hungary's revolution was a coup carried out by a few sensible men. My students would call this a "friendly" book. Meyer recounts momentous events in an accessible, engaging and intensely dramatic way. I had occasionally to remind myself that I was reading nonfiction; history is seldom written with such verve.


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The book is a two-for-one deal: Added as a bonus are some poignant lessons: Dialogue often beats force, and heroes are sometimes quiet.