At midnight of 12 August 1961 East Germany became partitioned from the West by an ideological barrier that would remain a chancroid rash upon the political landscape of post WW2 Europe for some forty-five years. Initially little more than rolls of barbed wire, this barrier soon became the concrete monolith known the world over as the Berlin Wall. Prior to the construction of the wall an exodus of some 3.5 million East Germans circumvented the Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions in order to escape the socialist nightmare that many knew was now imminent. For those on the other side of the wall their lives would be characterized by fear, oppression, the denial of basic human rights and an abject paranoia coupled with endless ques of people outside shops with no goods to sell. This book tells the story of those who lived under the German Democratic Republic (GDR) where Marxism-Leninism and Russian language were compulsory for all schoolchildren. Although hatred and resistance towards the regime soon flourished it would take many decades for communism to choke upon its own poison, but would a re-unified Germany and the rest of Europe be any safer in the wake of its demise? AUTHORS: Born into a military family, TIM HEATH'S interest in military history led him firstly to specialise in military ammunition, weapons and militaria collecting with particular emphasis on the air war of the Second World War. This inadvertently led him to focus his research efforts on the social history elements of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich Germany focussing largely on the roles of females prior to and during the Third Reich Nazi era. During the course of his research work spanning some thirty-six years, he worked closely with both the German War Graves Commission, Kassel, Germany and veterans and civilians of all sides of the global conflict that was the Second World War. He has written extensively for some of the UK's leading military history magazines and has contributed articles to various online media around the world. Following the successful debut of his first book Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles in 2017. The Other Side of the Berlin Wall: East German Life Under Tyranny will be Tim's latest contribution to retelling the heavily scrutinised Second World War period from a fresh perspective. He lives in the old market town of Evesham, Worcestershire with his partner Paula. Annamarie Vickers-Skidmore's passion for literature and history led her to work in both commercial and battlefield tourism. AVCE Travel & Tourism, the company she currently works for, are one of the leading providers of Battlefield Tourism. Alongside her interest in military history, Annamarie has self-published 9 books of poetic and spoken word material. This is her second book for Pen and Sword. 40 b/w illustrations
