Author Topic: Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe ~ September Book Club Online (Read 55224 times)

JoanP · « **on:** July 18, 2011, 08:38:27 AM »

PLEASE POST BELOW IF YOU CAN JOIN US in SEPTEMBER

Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe

JOIN US in September as we renew our history, a more accurate history, of events that most of us remember very well. Historians are now able to not only do research into fresh new documents, but personal interviews have uncovered a wealth of information that is stunning to read. A young, untested, wealthy, U.S. president meets a Russian premier, son of a coal miner; Kennedy and Khrushchev, opposite in every way, yet holding the world in their hands. It's drama at the very best.

President Kennedy called the year a "string of disasters;" Kempe called it one of the worst of any modern presidency.

The book is divided into three parts: THE PLAYERS, THE GATHERING STORM AND THE SHOWDOWN.
Fascinating history, dramatic with new research into documents never before explored.

The Players

Left to right: Krushchev - Ulbricht - Kennedy - Adenauer

Discussion Schedule

Sept 1-8 Part I
Sept 9-16 Part II
Sept 17-30 Part III and Epilogue

Related links:
Frederick Kempe's home page;
New York Times Book Review;

Discussion Leaders: Ella & Harold

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #1 on:** July 19, 2011, 08:15:03 AM »

Where were you in 1961? Growing up, in college, raising children, reading the headlines. You will recognize the figures in this story, but not the details and it is all in the details, the secret meetings, the dangerous diplomacy between two nuclear countries. The book is so readable, it could be fiction.

WE HOPE YOU JOIN US IN SEPTEMBER.

WELCOME TO ALL!

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #2 on:** July 19, 2011, 05:36:30 PM »

“Berlin, 1961” by Frederick Kempe is about one of the 4 or 5 major East/West cold war confrontations that kept the world on pins and needles during the several decades following the end of WW II. Certainly many of you, like me will enjoy this reading that is sure to bring back personal recollections of the event. For me I remember waking up one Sunday morning to read in that day's San Antonio Light newspaper that the Russians had started building a concrete wall closing the border between East and West Berlin.

All of you are invited to join us in a dissuasion of this event as detailed in this book that will begin September first and continue through the month of September. Ella and I hope you will be here.

serenesheila · « **Reply #3 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:07:21 PM »

Please count me in.

Sheila

kidsal · « **Reply #4 on:** July 21, 2011, 03:07:53 AM »

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #5 on:** July 21, 2011, 11:41:22 AM »

SHEILA AND KIDSAL!

Wonderful, good start! Thanks for posting.

In regard to Harold's post, I don't remember the "building" of the wall and none of the events surrounding it. I do have memories of that period which we can get into later. We all remember President Reagan and when the Wall came down.

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #6 on:** July 22, 2011, 02:38:50 PM »

Thank you SHEILA AND KIDSAL. It's been a long time since we had a discus-ion on a Cold War event and I think this is a great book for this event. We should have at least three of four more to make an active discussion . Any one Else? You are welcome to join.

Jonathan · « **Reply #7 on:** July 22, 2011, 03:43:35 PM »

This looks like a splendid selection to read and talk about. Count me in.

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #8 on:** July 22, 2011, 04:46:05 PM »

Thank you Jonathon, glad to have you back.

You know now I'm thinking this may be the first Cold War Event we have discussed in our Seniornet/books, Seniorlearn past?

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #9 on:** July 23, 2011, 09:14:54 AM »

Thanks for your interest, JONATHAN!

Yes, HAROLD, I do believe it is the first Cold War event and the animosity, suspicion between the Soviet Union and the USA. We've discussed Kennedy in another book once upon a time but not in connection with his first year in office and the disastrous errors that were made.

Memories of that era - we could talk in generalities without ever opening the book. Krushchev pounding the table at the UN, promising to bury America. What year was that visit? I remember his disappointment at not being allowed to visit Disneyworld in California (I believe, or is that a false memory?).

WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF THE ERA, ANYONE?

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #10 on:** July 23, 2011, 09:26:05 AM »

It was in 1960 that Krushchev made that visit to the UN - here is more than you will ever want to know about the man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev

However, it is a good picture of him. While skimming the article I thought this paragraph interesting:

"While visiting the United States in 1959, Khrushchev was greatly impressed by the agricultural education program at Iowa State University, and sought to imitate it in the Soviet Union. At the time, the main agricultural college in the USSR was in Moscow, and students did not do the manual labor of farming. Khrushchev proposed to move the programs to rural areas. He was unsuccessful, due to resistance from professors and students, who never actually disagreed with the premier, but who did not carry out his proposals.[167] Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs, "It's nice to live in Moscow and work at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. It's a venerable old institution, a large economic unit, with skilled instructors, but it's in the city! Its students aren't yearning to work on the collective farms because to do that they'd have to go out in the provinces and live in the sticks."[168]

It was in the CITY!

PatH · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2011, 01:57:03 PM »

I didn't want to commit myself until I got a look at the book. I've now gotten ahold of the last available copy in my library system. It looks good, so I'll join you in September.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #12 on:** July 24, 2011, 03:13:54 PM »

That's great, Pat! Welcome and I do hope no one gets discouraged at the size of the book. There are about 20 pages of photos in the center of it and about 70 pages of notes at the end of it.

And besides that, it is in bold, rather large print, and very, VERY READABLE.

I watched a DVD the other day - THIRTEEN DAYS - the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the decisions of President Kennedy.

In many ways, Krushchev had the courage to put those nuclear missiles in Cuba because of his perception of Kennedy, which is explained in this book.

PatH · « **Reply #13 on:** July 24, 2011, 04:45:03 PM »

Yes, it reads right along, reasonably speedy going. I'm looking forward to being reminded of a lot of things, as well as learning a lot more stuff I didn't know.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #14 on:** July 25, 2011, 03:40:26 PM »

My library doesn't have the book, but i've got enough time for an interlibrary loan.

My favorite Berlin story is the Truman airlift. I told it frequently to my history students. PBS did a wonderful documentary which included talking to people who were children who watched the planes and waited for the candy dropping from the planes.

Jean

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #15 on:** July 25, 2011, 07:23:08 PM »

Oh, that's good, JEAN! Yes, you have time to get the book. We'll be dividing it up into weeks soon, so don't read too far ahead.

You hear that, PAT!!

Jonathan · « **Reply #16 on:** July 26, 2011, 01:29:57 PM »

Imagine that. Candy falling from the sky. That memory would stay with one.

Do we have a quorum? Is it on? I put a reserve on the book at my library, and then later had a look at it in the store and bought it. See you all at Checkpoint Charlie.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #17 on:** July 27, 2011, 08:37:41 AM »

I think so, JONATHAN! I count six of us so far and I think there may be more as time goes on, don't you?

Of course, this book is a singular year, 1961, but what memories it recalls.

The Cold War it went on for some 30 years didn't it? Who named it the Cold War?

And didn't CIVIL DEFENSE SHELTERS signs go up on buildings. I have a vague memory, or am I being too fancifal, of yellow and black signs tacked on certain places in the neighborhood.

And certainly some folks considered building an underground family shelter. My neighbor did. What conversations we had over the whole issue!

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #18 on:** July 29, 2011, 10:56:03 AM »

I suppose 6 active participants will be enough, but I had hoped for more. We started out with twice that number in the recent Summer Moon discussion. Hopefully we can still pick up several more who will certainly be welcome.

Regarding the Berlin airlift that came earlier in 1948 49, for almost a year the Western allies were forced to supply West Berlin by Air. All the Food, energy (Coal) and other necessities needed by the West sectors of Berlin were delivered by a continuing succession of allied cargo planes. In some ways this crisis was more dangerous than our 1961 discussion crisis, in others less. It was more dangerous because Joseph Stalin and his massive WW II army was still around. On the other hand the Russians had not yet developed their atom bomb. It was this weakness that caused the Russians to finally reopen the Highway and Rail access from the west after nearly a year of Blockade.

One of the aircraft used by the U.S. was the C-47 Transport that had been the backbone of the U.S. WW II Air cargo capability. I remember being a passenger on a C-47 taking me from the Philippines to Peleu Island in July 1945. It was a bumpy flight with passengers in bucket seats. We cane within sight of the Jap Naval Base on Yap but at that time the base had been all but obliterated by air strikes and at that time the surrender negotiations were in progress. I was on Peleu only a few days during which I wandered the year old beach battle site before being sent on to Ulithi on a destroyer escort .

Jonathan · « **Reply #19 on:** July 29, 2011, 01:20:59 PM »

What a confrontation that Berlin airlift was. I was too young to go soldiering in WWII. By 1948-49 it looked like I was going to get my chance. The Cold War was underway. The next forty years now seem like an endless crisis. No one on earth was left unaffected as the world's two superpowers contested the destiny of that world.

Ella, our book tells us that it was Walter Lippmann who coined the phrase Cold War. We get to hear how he spent a day with Krushchev at K's Black Sea lair. In 1961. We also read that Lippmann advised President Woodrow Wilson and was himself a delegate to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference! The book is full of high drama.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #20 on:** July 30, 2011, 10:16:32 AM »

Thanks, JONATHAN!

kidsal · « **Reply #21 on:** August 07, 2011, 06:26:58 AM »

Book arrived. Pictures bring back memories.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #22 on:** August 08, 2011, 03:17:34 PM »

Comments from another book about the Wall, from my History News Network.

http://hnn.us/articles/8-8-11/berlinwall.html

Jean

Jonathan · « **Reply #23 on:** August 09, 2011, 01:43:19 PM »

Very interesting, Jean. Thanks for the link. I've bookmarked that site. Doing history, as someone has said, is fun. Making it, of course, can be harrowing, as we shall find out.

And so the Berlin Wall takes its place in history. Along with those other relics of other times, like the Wall of China, and the one Hadrian put up across England's fair and pleasant land to keep out the enemy two thousand years ago.

I like the last line of the article:

'Through it we remember the Cold War, that remote era of peace and fear.'

It seems like only yesterday. BERLIN 1961, I'm sure, will be as interesting and meaningful as PARIS 1919. And the photo sections are impressive. What a reception Kennedy got in Berlin. Greater even than the reception Wilson got in Paris. American presidents, obviously, are very popular in Europe. Greeted like heros.

JoanK · « **Reply #24 on:** August 10, 2011, 07:20:55 PM »

I'll join too.

Jonathan · « **Reply #25 on:** August 13, 2011, 02:22:00 PM »

It's good to see you here, Joan.

It's fifty years today that the Wall went up in Berlin. With hindsight that seems to have been a strategic blunder in the Cold War. But what a baptism of fire for a new president.

JoanK · « **Reply #26 on:** August 13, 2011, 06:26:51 PM »

I ordered a book-book, rather than getting it on my kindle, since pictures don't come out well on the kindle.

kiwilady · « **Reply #27 on:** August 14, 2011, 07:06:56 AM »

I will be joining you. Our library has lots of copies.

Carolyn

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #28 on:** August 15, 2011, 09:51:44 AM »

OH, THIS IS WONDERFUL. JOANK AND CAROLYN!

WE WILL BE POSTING A SCHEDULE SOON SO WATCH THE HEADING! THE PICTURES IN THE BOOK ARE GREAT AREN'T THEY?

We could list walls throughout history meant to keep people in or people out - biblical walls, etc. etc.,, Jonathan mentioned one - ---- the Great Wall of China. Walls, walls, interesting.

There is an article by George Will in the Washington Post this morning about our book. I haven't read it yet, just going out the door for errands, hoping to do so before the rains come. Will be back later.

So happy to see we have a good group to discuss the book!!!!

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #29 on:** August 15, 2011, 11:38:32 AM »

Welcome Carolyn and JoanK. The two of you will bring our group to 8, a nice size for a discussion. Also I like the fact that we will be an international group from New Zealand , Canada and the U.S.

Jonathan · « **Reply #30 on:** August 15, 2011, 12:13:54 PM »

What a fine group coming together for this book.

I've just read the George Will article in the Washington Post, mentioned by Ella in her post. That's a must read. It ruffles a lot of feathers judging by the critical replies posted. I got a bit angry myself. Will's outrageous statements turn into an incentive to read the book.

I came across another internet link to the Berlin Wall phenomenon. From Der Spiegel, and on a lighter note:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,778941,00.html

Still brooding over what I read. Wasn't Lincoln's first year a greater disaster than Kennedy's?

JoanK · « **Reply #31 on:** August 15, 2011, 02:57:40 PM »

WOW!

After the Berlin wall went down, you could buy "genuine" pieces of it in department stores. I still have one. Don't know if I ever want it tested to see if it's really genuine or not.

kiwilady · « **Reply #32 on:** August 15, 2011, 10:28:36 PM »

Just finished reading In the garden of Beasts a non fiction about the rise of the Nazi regime so it will be good to read about the events post war leading up the building of the wall.

Carolyn

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #33 on:** August 16, 2011, 10:40:09 AM »

What a question, JONATHAN! It boggles the mind. Write the book, we'll discuss it!

I had no idea, JOANK, that pieces of the Berlin wall were selling in stores. I saw a big block of it, original graffiti and all , in 1992 at an International Floral Show that was held for the first time in our biggest city park, a beautiful display from around the world and Germany had this block of the wall there; I stood in front of it for a long time thinking of how those penned on the wrong side of it must have longed to escape. The floral show was a huge financial disaster for the city but beautiful, just magnificent, for some of us. I wished afterwards that I had gone every day; I took some pictures but I have no idea where they are!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmeriFlora_'92

I think Germany should hold onto as many pieces of it as possible for future generations. Aren't they contemplating a museum of the wall? Did I read that somewhere?

I read that book also, CAROLYN, it was a good one.

Ella Gibbons · « **Reply #34 on:** August 17, 2011, 10:46:46 AM »

I copied this item from somewhere in the Internet but through carelessness I have lost the reference.

"Based on the number of overnight stays, Berlin surpassed Rome last year and is now Europe's third-most popular tourist destination. "Berliners haven't quite caught on to the fact that they are now playing in the same league with London and Paris," says Burkhard Kieker, the city's tourism director. The visitors are especially interested in the partition of Germany. Many would prefer to see the Wall in its undamaged original state, complete with all the structural details of the horrors associated with it. Kieker is well aware of how politically explosive a rebuilt section of the Wall would be. Nevertheless, he says, "that sort of thing would be a tremendous attraction."

GOOD GRIEF, THEY WOULDN'T DARE DO THAT, WOULD THEY?

marjifay · « **Reply #35 on:** August 18, 2011, 01:13:43 PM »

I've just started this book and am finding it so interesting. Already it has provoked my interest in reading some other books on people and events mentioned. There is a nice bibliography which is helpful. I want to read Khrushchev's Memoirs and the book about him by his son, Sergei.

Marj

HaroldArnold · « **Reply #36 on:** August 18, 2011, 03:32:05 PM »

Perhaps they should have left a couple of hundred feet of the wall when they obliterated it in 1990 as an historical site. I personally would see nothing wrong with rebuilding a short section for that purpose.

I remember watching the news TV pictures in 1989 with thousand of Germans on top of the wall demanding its destruction. Remembering Karl Marx theory, it occurred to me as I watched that I was witnessing an event not anticipated by Marx- the second rising of the proletariat. It was in fact a revolutionary event that in the course of the next year reversed the history of the preceding 70 years. If I remember it right it was Jan 1, 1991 when the Soviet Union went out of existence and the Cold War was over.

JoanK · « **Reply #37 on:** August 18, 2011, 03:44:01 PM »

I took out my piece of the Berlin Wall yesterday, and held it in my hand. just a crumbled piece, but it gave me chills.

PatH · « **Reply #38 on:** August 19, 2011, 02:22:38 PM »

Funny, Joan, I did the same thing with my piece. I don't see why it shouldn't be genuine. There must have been huge piles of the rubble lying around. It would have been pretty easy to take a lot of big hunks and chop them up into little pieces.

Jonathan · « **Reply #39 on:** August 19, 2011, 03:01:16 PM »

I was just going to tell Joan to copyright her evocative expression of holding a bit of history in her hand. Very moving. And now I see that Pat also has a piece of The Wall. Did you have strong feelings about the wall?

After reading Harold's post I found myself wondering how Karl Marx would have felt about the wall. I can also imagine Khruschev damning it after it had wrecked his career.

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Author Topic: Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe ~ September Book Club Online (Read 55224 times)