Checkpoint Charlie

The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

By: Iain MacGregor

Narrated by: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart

A powerful, fascinating, and groundbreaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War.

As tensions between east and west rose during the Cold War, East Germany committed $millions to the creation of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, an 11-foot-high barrier that would evolve through the years to consist of 79 miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs and 20 bunkers and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next 28 years, at least 10 thousand people attempted to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it, desperate to escape the repressive totalitarian East German regime for the freedom of the West.

In November 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world's media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signalled the end of the Cold War. The wall was opened, and then torn down, stone by stone. Checkpoint Charlie, the epicentre of global conflict for nearly three decades, was the location of the greatest jubilation as crowds flowed across the border.

As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia and fear that gripped Berlin throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Reagan, Gorbachev and other leaders of the period.

He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.

©2019 Iain MacGregor (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"A lively, evocative account of the life and death of the world's most notorious wall. In capturing the essence of the old Cold War he may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one." (The Times)

"Checkpoint Charlie is a fascinating and telling reminder of what was perhaps the most potent symbol of the Cold War...Iain MacGregor writes with great fluency and narrative drive." (William Boyd, New Statesman)

"A rich collection of tales from cold war Berlin captures the city's mad complexities." (Observer)

An enjoyable overview

Although more western in its perspective, this was a truly interesting read. The change from exposition to quotations is sometimes challenging to understand, as ‘he’ becomes ‘I’ in adjoining paragraphs.
This being said, this book holds its own. It presents a fascinating overview of a compelling piece of our recent (and arguably partly forgotten) past.