Beyond the Wall, Katja Hoyer
Beyond the Wall, Katja Hoyer
2 Rating(s)
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Beyond the Wall
A History of East Germany

Author: Katja Hoyer

Narrator: Sam Peter Jackson

Unabridged: 16 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 09/05/2023

Synopsis

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the ashes of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the definitive history of East Germany, "a fascinating, sparkling book, filled with insights" (Peter Frankopan)
 
In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. 
  
In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country, revealing the rich political, social, and cultural landscape that existed amid oppression and hardship. Drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews and documents, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, beyond the Wall. 

About Katja Hoyer

Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian specializing in modern German history. She was born in East Germany and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London and has written for History Today and BBC History Extra among other history outlets. Katja now lives in Sussex, England.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on March 03, 2025

A comfortable dictatorship Why did the East Germans drink so much more beer than the West Germans? In 1988, they drank 142 litres of beer a year, double the intake of the average West German. Was it to forget their worries, which came with living in the German Democratic Republic? No says Katja Hoyer......more

Goodreads review by Rob on August 29, 2023

This book has been getting a good reception from critics and fits well with the emerging revisionist history of socialist Eastern Europe from authors like Kristen Ghodsee, Lea Ypi, Gal Kirn etc. As implied by the title, the purpose of the book is to take a wider look at the history of the German Demo......more

Goodreads review by Great-O-Khan on May 22, 2023

"Diesseits der Mauer" von Katja Hoyer ist eines der interessantesten Sachbücher der letzten Monate. Es beschreibt die Geschichte der DDR. Neben der Zeit von 1949 bis 1990 behandelt es auch die Zeit vor der Gründung der DDR und die Zeit nach der sogenannten "Wiedervereinigung". Ich bin Jahrgang 1969.......more

Goodreads review by Mervyn on May 10, 2023

A brilliantly written and researched piece of work. You really get a comprehensive insight and understanding of what life was like in the GDR. And there are many surprises. Such as how high living standards were (comparatively, within the Communist sphere), how content much of the population was and......more

Goodreads review by Nathaniel on August 07, 2023

this new history of the German Democratic Republic has made a big swath of the German press boil with rage: "it whitewashes the evil Stalinist dictatorship," etc. Well, I've read it, and it struck me as a fairly standard Western view of the East. The author even claims that Stalin was responsible fo......more

Quotes

“What makes this meticulous book essential reading is not so much its sense of what East Germans lost but of what we never had. A history of the GDR that adds stability, contentment, and women’s rights to the familiar picture of authoritarianism.”
 —Stuart Jeffries, Guardian

"[F]ast-paced, vivid and engaging."—Times Literary Supplement

“Forget everything you thought you knew about life in the GDR. This terrifically colorful, surprising, and enjoyable history of the socialist state is full of surprises. Enormously refreshing.”
 —Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

“Brilliant. Hoyer is a historian of immense ability. Exhaustively researched, cleverly constructed, and beautifully written, this much-needed history of the GDR should be required reading across her homeland. Five stars.”
 —Saul David, Daily Telegraph

“Enthralling, fascinating, and very readable history.”—Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday

“A rich, counterintuitive history of a country all too often dismissed as a freak or accident of the Cold War.”
 —Observer

“A vivid political story of the communist German state.” —Economist

“Myth-busting, artfully constructed history. Hoyer displays a special understanding and wants to present a corrective to previous reductive assessments of the GDR that depict it as a field-gray Stasiland. Her command of detail, broad historical brush strokes, and evident sympathy for her interview partners make for a fascinating read.”
 —Roger Boyes, Times (London)

“Having begun her life behind the wall, Hoyer tells the story of the GDR with emotional intensity but also with the detachment and balance of a professional historian who is determined to portray both the good and bad. And a very interesting story it is, too.”
 —Oliver Letwin, The Tablet

“Tremendous. Until the publication of Beyond the Wall, there hadn’t been an English-language history of the GDR with which to color in that vanished country’s past.”
 —Peter Hoskins, Prospect

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