The Tunnels

Author: Greg Mitchell

Publisher: Crown

Release Date: October 18, 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

History lovers will love this exciting description of the first year of escapes under the Berlin wall.

In August of 1961, a physical barrier was erected separating the already tense division between East and West Berlin. Germans who lived in East Berlin but worked in the West were suddenly found unemployed.  Families were separated, but many felt the wall wouldn’t last.  They expected to see it come down any day as a failed experiment.  Slowly, the barbed wire fence become concrete and finding a weak area to cross or escape was getting more and more difficult.  However, a few people with a passion to see their fellow Germans free worked to figure out a way to tunnel under the wall and bring escapees into the West.  Some were successful, others not as much. The Tunnels explores these expeditions as well as the tensions between Washington, Berlin, and Russia during one of the most tense times in history.

Prior to this book, I knew about the Berlin wall, but not about what all it represented and how much it divided families across the city and country. Reading the descriptions about how oppressed the East was and how people trying to escape were killed and the propaganda was used to make them look like their death was a good thing was appalling.  It is hard to believe that this was just over fifty years ago.

Mitchell did a great job presenting this book in a way that read more like a novel than a nonfiction historical account. It was fascinating, quick to read, and educating.  Since reading this, I have shared it with over readers who felt the same way.  I really enjoyed getting to find out more about the time frame and how the Kennedy administration handled the situations and how it impacted the Cold War.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested about the wall or just about the era itself.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.