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Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain
The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 shocked the world. Ever since, the image of this impenetrable barrier between East and West, imposed by communism, has been a central symbol of the Cold War.
Based on vast research in untapped archival, oral, and private sources, Burned Bridge reveals the hidden origins of the Iron Curtain, presenting it in a startling new light. Historian Edith Sheffer's unprecedented, in-depth account focuses on Burned Bridge-the intersection between two sister cities,
Sonneberg and Neustadt bei Coburg, Germany's largest divided population outside Berlin. Sheffer demonstrates that as Soviet and American forces occupied each city after the Second World War, townspeople who historically had much in common quickly formed opposing interests and identities. The border
walled off irreconcilable the differences of freedom and captivity, rich and poor, peace and bloodshed, and past and present. Sheffer describes how smuggling, kidnapping, rape, and killing in the early postwar years led citizens to demand greater border control on both sides--long before
East Germany fortified its 1,393 kilometer border with West Germany. It was in fact the American military that built the first barriers at Burned Bridge, which preceded East Germany's borderland crackdown by many years. Indeed, Sheffer shows that the physical border between East and West was not
simply imposed by Cold War superpowers, but was in some part an improvised outgrowth of an anxious postwar society.
Ultimately, a wall of the mind shaped the wall on the ground. East and West Germans became part of, and helped perpetuate, the barriers that divided them. From the end of World War II through two decades of reunification, Sheffer traces divisions at Burned Bridge with sharp insight and compassion,
presenting a stunning portrait of the Cold War on a human scale.
Based on vast research in untapped archival, oral, and private sources, Burned Bridge reveals the hidden origins of the Iron Curtain, presenting it in a startling new light. Historian Edith Sheffer's unprecedented, in-depth account focuses on Burned Bridge-the intersection between two sister cities,
Sonneberg and Neustadt bei Coburg, Germany's largest divided population outside Berlin. Sheffer demonstrates that as Soviet and American forces occupied each city after the Second World War, townspeople who historically had much in common quickly formed opposing interests and identities. The border
walled off irreconcilable the differences of freedom and captivity, rich and poor, peace and bloodshed, and past and present. Sheffer describes how smuggling, kidnapping, rape, and killing in the early postwar years led citizens to demand greater border control on both sides--long before
East Germany fortified its 1,393 kilometer border with West Germany. It was in fact the American military that built the first barriers at Burned Bridge, which preceded East Germany's borderland crackdown by many years. Indeed, Sheffer shows that the physical border between East and West was not
simply imposed by Cold War superpowers, but was in some part an improvised outgrowth of an anxious postwar society.
Ultimately, a wall of the mind shaped the wall on the ground. East and West Germans became part of, and helped perpetuate, the barriers that divided them. From the end of World War II through two decades of reunification, Sheffer traces divisions at Burned Bridge with sharp insight and compassion,
presenting a stunning portrait of the Cold War on a human scale.
357 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
13 people are currently reading
219 people want to read
About the author
Edith Sheffer
4 books60 followersEdith Sheffer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her current book, Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna (W. W. Norton, 2018) investigates Hans Asperger’s creation of the autism diagnosis in the Third Reich, examining Nazi psychiatry's emphasis on social spirit and Asperger's involvement in the euthanasia program that killed children considered to be disabled.
Sheffer's prize-winning first book, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford University Press, 2011), challenges the moral myth of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War’s central symbol -- revealing how the Iron Curtain was not simply imposed by Communism, but emerged from the everyday actions of ordinary people. Her next book, Hidden Front: Switzerland and World War Two, tells an in-depth history of a nation whose pivotal role remains unexposed yet was decisive in the course of the Second World War.
Her current book, Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna (W. W. Norton, 2018) investigates Hans Asperger’s creation of the autism diagnosis in the Third Reich, examining Nazi psychiatry's emphasis on social spirit and Asperger's involvement in the euthanasia program that killed children considered to be disabled.
Sheffer's prize-winning first book, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford University Press, 2011), challenges the moral myth of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War’s central symbol -- revealing how the Iron Curtain was not simply imposed by Communism, but emerged from the everyday actions of ordinary people. Her next book, Hidden Front: Switzerland and World War Two, tells an in-depth history of a nation whose pivotal role remains unexposed yet was decisive in the course of the Second World War.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 23, 2024
Not often that you get a life lesson from a monograph, but the idea that we are our own best jailers really pops off here
August 30, 2023
It was very interesting but very dry, it took a lot of effort to pick it back up after a put it down for a pause.
November 28, 2012
Very good read and well devised narrative. Some of its argumentative weaknesses can be attributed to the fact that it began as a Ph.D. thesis, written by a "brand new" historian. In light of this fact, it is actually fantastic. She describes the gradual development of a "mental" border in the minds of East and West Germans, and how this border was in many ways more powerful than the physical boundary that is so well known. Rather than focusing on Berlin, her story concerns the German towns of Neustadt (West Germany) and Sonneberg (East Germany), which have a history of collaboration and rivalry, but which develop a deep mental division within their populations before the physical boundary between them is put in place. Especially interesting is her (albeit brief) discussion of how imperfect their 1989 reunion was. Rather than providing only the image of East Germans rushing over the border into welcoming Western arms, she discusses German reactions that went beyond the initial border collapse, and how difficult it actually was to reconcile two towns whose citizens had learned to consider themselves divided.
May 17, 2012
It's clear that the residents of the two towns at Burned Bridge made each other's lives difficult before the construction of the wall between them, but Sheffer could possibly have better supported her thesis that it was the case afterwards, as well. Otherwise a thorough and well-researched Alltagsgeschichte, written in an engaging and straightforward tone.
September 8, 2021
This book looks at international history through a local lens: The cities of Sonneberg and Neustadt (bei Coburg) and the surrounding farmland and woods and villages constituted a cohesive region since the Middle Ages, but a fluke of history put them on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain - a line that started out quite porous almost immediately at the end of World War II, and became progressively more solid over the next couple decades, until it quite abruptly disappeared in 1989/90 - at which point some people were surprised to find they all speak the same dialect.
I love the pun in the title: combining the English expression about "burning bridges" with the fact that Sonneberg and Neustadt were joined together by a "gebrannte Brücke" (literally: "burned bridge") - a wooden bridge that was charred in order to resist rot.
Scheffer's thesis in the book is that the division between East and West was driven as much by the locals, from the bottom up, as by top-down geopolitics. I think that she overstates the case, and that much of the time that she spends arguing it actually detracts from the really interesting history (which she researched quite thoroughly, including a lot of original research; kudos!) that stands well on its own.
A minor pet peeve: Scheffer refers (obviously) to a lot of German institutions and other things - by the English translation of their names, mostly without giving the original German name or phrase, even in a footnote. As a German-speaker, that irritated me. It might be the fault of the publisher, though, rather than the author.
All in all, the book is definitely worth reading if you have an interest in German history or Cold-War history.
I love the pun in the title: combining the English expression about "burning bridges" with the fact that Sonneberg and Neustadt were joined together by a "gebrannte Brücke" (literally: "burned bridge") - a wooden bridge that was charred in order to resist rot.
Scheffer's thesis in the book is that the division between East and West was driven as much by the locals, from the bottom up, as by top-down geopolitics. I think that she overstates the case, and that much of the time that she spends arguing it actually detracts from the really interesting history (which she researched quite thoroughly, including a lot of original research; kudos!) that stands well on its own.
A minor pet peeve: Scheffer refers (obviously) to a lot of German institutions and other things - by the English translation of their names, mostly without giving the original German name or phrase, even in a footnote. As a German-speaker, that irritated me. It might be the fault of the publisher, though, rather than the author.
All in all, the book is definitely worth reading if you have an interest in German history or Cold-War history.
February 10, 2015
If you want to understand what a border means
A really interesting study . From two local communities' fate a clear analysis of how a border keeps people united and divided. It goes well beyond the drama of Cold War Germany.
A really interesting study . From two local communities' fate a clear analysis of how a border keeps people united and divided. It goes well beyond the drama of Cold War Germany.
February 10, 2024
I really didn't think this topic would be for me, but it's been one of the more memorable books I've read! Very well researched and convincingly showed how an imagined social division predated and shaped the actual physical wall.
October 24, 2022
Really enjoyed this book — very well-written prose, a good balance of specificity and general context, and just the right length.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews