... form—not as the display of picturesquely crumbling façades, but as new interventions and installations set into the gutted shell of a former Socialist civic center. The second structure is the Berlin Wall as it is preserved and memorialized in the Berlin Wall Memorial Grounds on Bernauer Straẞe, built...

...This chapter focuses on the most infamous of the Stalin films, Mikhail Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin (1950), paying particular attention to its contemporary reception. The Fall of Berlin presents the clearest depiction of the postwar incarnation of Stalin...

... for the return of certain aspects of the German Democratic Republic that swept former East Germans and even West Germans in the two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Before 1989, the Trabant—with its two-stroke engine, plastic fiberglass body, and terrible quality—was for many West Germans...

...This chapter examines how “coming out” became an explicitly political act in the 1970s and why activists in West Berlin chose the pink triangle as the logo that would signify the coming out of individuals, a social movement for gay rights (the Schwulenbewegung), and ultimately...

...This chapter explores the objects given to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The domestic items that have returned to Germany after having been sent into forced exile with their Jewish owners in the 1930s and early 1940s have now settled into their new home. Their transfer to the museum signifies...

...This chapter assesses the various obstacles impeding the expansion of the American Century from early 1961 through 1964. Numerous problems, including Laos, Berlin, the Cuban missile crisis, and Vietnam brought into question John F. Kennedy’s leadership. His response too often minimized consultation...

...This chapter examines instances of witness testimony that emanate from Peter Szondi's critical reflections on the hermeneutic status of textual and oral citation. It analyzes Szondi's inaugural speech, delivered at the Free University of Berlin in 1961, in which he meditates on Walter Benjamin's...

...This chapter addresses the impact of new ideas on the Berlin and Cuban Missile crises, plans for nuclear warfare, weapons for future war, and the US Air Force. During the one thousand days of the Kennedy administration, the Air Force and administration not only clashed in the realm of strategic...

...This concluding chapter explains how the works included in this book do not present an image of Berlin as the Whore of Babylon—a sinful metropolis teetering on the brink of destruction. Social historian Robert Hessen expressed his confidence in the Berliners' no-nonsense practicality (Vernunft...

.... The chapter suggests that the Bush administration wanted to preserve old alliances and reassure traditional allies by promising a continuation of the United States's “forward presence.” It concludes by assessing U.S. defense planning in a period of uncertainty caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall and how...

...This book concludes with an analysis of what the United States did and how it fared during the momentous years that followed the end of the Cold War. It begins by discussing the evolution of strategy from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the onset of Barack Obama's presidency. It then considers...

... with and appreciation by German culture, Camera Obscura represents a reworking of his earlier “German” novel King, Queen, Knave from the far side of Weimar Berlin's economic collapse. The chapter argues that the novel includes a precise topography of Berlin cinematic culture, centered...

... to this license, all rights are reserved. This chapter assesses Soviet behavior during the Berlin Crisis. The Soviet Union proceeded cautiously throughout the period of American atomic monopoly. That restraint continued during the Berlin crisis and is attributable in part to US nuclear monopoly. The Soviets...

...In Berlin, decrepit structures do not always denote urban blight. Decayed buildings are incorporated into everyday life as residences, exhibition spaces, shops, offices, and as leisure space. As nodes of public dialogue, they serve as platforms for dissenting views about the future and past...

... nuclear arsenal during wars in 1969–70 and 1973; Chinese confrontations with the United States in 1950, 1954, and 1958; and a dispute that never escalated to war, the Soviet–United States tensions between 1946 and 1948 that culminated in the Berlin Blockade. Those strategies include limiting the scope...

... experience of Berlin's urban cinematic culture for a Russian and German audience. By examining Gessen's reviews for Rul' (the émigré newspaper their fathers had cofounded), the chapter shows how this critical engagement with a large mass of films provided a discursive model for an engagement...

... role in the Chapter XI territories built on the creation of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Transmission of Information to advance a variety of proposals for accountability. It looks at the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Blockade, creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and other...

...This concluding chapter chronicles the aftermath of the collapse of the Russian nationalist coalition in the southwestern borderlands. It shows how the epic battle that unfolded in mid-twentieth-century Ukraine was not only a contest between Moscow and Berlin; it also became intertwined with a much...

...This book considers how policymakers react to dramatic developments on the world stage. Few expected the Berlin Wall to come down in November 1989; no one anticipated the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. American foreign policy had to adjust quickly...

...This chapter studies how Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev viewed the resolve of President John F. Kennedy, looking at Khrushchev's decision making surrounding the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. According to evidence made available from declassified and translated Soviet...