TUNNEL 29

The inside story of a daring episode by a group of German students who dug into East Berlin to help their friends and families escape.

London-based broadcast journalist Merriman focuses primarily on Joachim Rudolph, who grew up in East Berlin after the post–World War II division of Germany. As a young boy and teenager, he took advantage of the ability to travel between the two sides of the city to enjoy the freer lifestyle in West Berlin. In 1961, however, the East German authorities erected the Berlin Wall, and, almost overnight, life under the communist government became even more oppressive. Rudolph and a friend escaped in September of that year, and soon he was a student at the technical university in West Berlin, studying communications engineering. But the wall remained a key fact in the lives of everyone in Berlin and a vivid symbol of the differences between two systems. Rudolph soon found himself in a group planning to dig a tunnel into East Berlin to rescue friends and family left behind. In addition to chronicling Rudolph’s story, the author cuts away to follow others, including the informant who nearly managed to expose the entire plot to the Stasi after he was caught smuggling contraband across the border and the NBC crew leader who found out about the diggers and recorded their efforts from start to finish. The result is a fascinating account of a daring escape from a repressive regime as well as a vivid portrait of life in Berlin in the early days of the wall—and of the international impact of events in that city. Merriman effectively maintains the pace and suspense, giving readers a novelistic narrative with a solid foundation of fact.

An entertaining real-life Cold War thriller following a group of students who escaped under “the Wall of all walls.”