"Whether
accompanying a sad middle-aged man to Magdeburg
in search of a missing mail-order bride or witnessing
a bizarre celebration of the old East German Trabant
car, August makes a fine guide to the paradoxes
of a unified Germany."
SUNDAY
TIMES
"This
engaging narrative is Oliver August's story of his
recent car journey along the length of the old Iron
Curtain ('Stalin's giant garden fence'), from north
to south. The writer reflects, reports and uses
delightful anecdotes to illustrate the changing
shape of Germany's identity since the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989."
THE OBSERVER
"August
is keen to find the humour in every situation. On
the whole, however, there isn't much cause for cheer.
August is too intelligent to be suckered by state
programmes for redevelopment, or to applaud the
conversion of minefields into golf courses. As a
piece of reportage, his book is a fascinating slice
of history."
THE INDEPENDENT
"The
German nation finds it as hard as ever to love itself.
August self-flagellates like everyone else, but
with a tinge of cheekiness and energy."
THE
SPECTATOR
From
Library Journal
After
ten years, it is easy to forget that Germany was
a divided country for more than 40 years. Post-World
War II politics determined that Nazi Germany would
be divided into two parts: a Western democratic
country influenced by the Americans, British, and
French and an Eastern Socialist/Communist country
influenced by the former Soviet Union. What remains
of this artificial divide? German-born and Oxford-educated
August, a Times correspondent who has recently received
the Anglo-German Foundation Journalism Award, tries
to answer this question in an engrossing account
of his search for the physical and social remnants
of the border that once divided West and East Germany.
As August meticulously wends his way down the former
frontier, he encounters difficulties in finding
the actual border but has no problem reporting on
conversations with residents who have lingering
doubts about the advantages of unification and the
possibility of creating a truly unified Germany.
This is a fearless, critical, accurate, and balanced
assessment of the complicated political and social
situation that will fester despite the elimination
of a strong, physical barrier. Highly recommended
for all European travel and history collections.
Amazon.co.uk Review
In
1948 Oliver August's father put a suitcase under
a pile of cow dung and drove a horse-drawn cart
from his house in the German village of Ellrich
to a nearby field owned by his family. At the time
the short journey, which took him from the Soviet
to the British zones of post-war Germany, was casually
policed at the time by Soviet guards. A few years
later it had become the frontline in the Cold War
and, as the frontier between East and West Germany,
one of the most fortified borders in the world.
Along
the Wall and Watchtowers: A Journey down Germany's
Divide takes August on an 800 mile journey down
the political faultline that separated his father
from his childhood home 10 years after the Berlin
Wall came down. Along the way he meets resentful
former border guards, recalcitrant family members,
uptight hitchhikers and towns that were split in
half by the arbitrary frontier that made two countries
out of one. "The border was defined not by
geography but by people; the people it caged, the
people fighting it and the people who controlled
it", he concludes. Better at describing how
the division affected Germany's past than at analysing
what reunification means for its present and future,
August provides an entertaining and readable account
of a journey in a country most British readers know
only through stereotypes. --Gary Younge
Synopsis
A
revealing portrait of the reunified Germany told
in the form of an entertaining travelogue -- an
800-mile journey along the former Iron Curtain from
the Baltic Sea to the Czech border. * In recent
German history, borders -- and their expansion --
have been central to the fate of Europe. When the
Iron Curtain dissolved ten years ago, the faultline
that divided West and East Germany also collapsed.
But could the so-called 'anti-fascist protection
barrier' (or 'death strip') be erased as easily
as a pencil-mark on the map? Curious to find out,
Oliver August set off on an 800-mile journey from
the Baltic Sea to the Czech border. * In his encounters
with former border guards, ex-Stasi members turned
insurance salesmen, decollectivized farmers, innkeepers,
nudists, car mechanics, engine-drivers, foresters,
artists and dreamers, the author reveals with a
delightful lightness of touch the hopes, fears and
regrets of both 'Wessis' and 'Ossis', and listens
to the anxieties of those who feel 'colonized' by
the West. * He travels along the Elbe, observing
new nature reserves in the old borderlands; visits
the unique village republic where for 22 years the
inhabitants lived enclosed between two fences; watches
the rebuilding of the Bismarck family castle; attends an international gathering of Trabant-owners; explores
museums devoted to documenting former life along
the border; travels across the dark and sinister
Harz mountains which once harboured an underground
Nazi concentration camp; and ends his journey in
Hof, where minefields have been transformed into
golf courses.
