Are fulfilled now 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, last symbol of the Cold War between the divided blocks after the end of the Second World War. Today I bring half a dozen titles about the German capital, so many years separated with that wall, and today one of the most vibrant and advanced in the world. They are different stories at different times of an always captivating Berlin. Since historical essays to classics already of the black novel. Let's see.
Berlin The Fall: 1945 - Antony Beevor
Nothing to understand Berlin divided by that wall than to go to origin of your reason, atSecond World War and the two hegemonic blocks that resulted in the end. And Antony Beevor is one of the historians who has best known how to tell it. In this book he reconstructs the last great european battle of the conflict that supposed the defeat and fall of the Third Reich.
With its rigorous documentation and more epic and political load, Beevor describes both the complexity of the large military operations and the decisions of their commanders such as feelings of civilians trapped in a city almost completely destroyed.
The fall of the Berlin wall - Ricardo Martín de la Guardia
Martin de la Guardia is Professor of Contemporary History from the University of Valladolid and here, with great skill and analytical skills, he tells us those definitive events that marked the destiny of Germany since its defeat in the war. Of how Berlin, with that wall erected in 1961, it became the symbol of the Europe also divided.
Behind the wall - Roberto Ampuero
This Chilean writer narrates in this background story disenchanted and in the first person the years he lived in the German Democratic Republic, where he came after flee the Chilean dictatorship when he was a member of the Communist Youth of that country. There he found the solidarity of the communist government, but also with a repressive system, economically and culturally backward, and that it only managed to stay on its feet thanks to the police state and the Soviet troops.
All the best - Cesar Pérez Gellida
We are going to Cold War with this novel by a literary reference already from our country like Pérez Gellida. In this book he tells us the story of Viktor Lavrov, a young talent from the KGB stationed in Berlin during this time. There he receives a delicate assignment that will test his knowledge in criminal psychology and his talent as an intelligence agent. But it will cross with him efforts of the chief inspector of the Kriminalpolizei, Otto Bauer, to solve the deaths of five minors who seem related to each other and that the GDR authorities do not want to recognize.
Shadows over Berlin - Volker Kutscher
And with this series from Kutscher and the next from Kerr We go to the earlier Berlin, the one from the 30s, when what would happen shortly after was not yet anticipated, but darkness was already looming in German history. This title by the German writer and journalist Volker Kutscher is the first starring his detective Gereon rath, a young commissioner from Cologne.
Rath is sent to Berlin to work in the sex crimes department. But you will get caught up in the case by chance of the death of a Russian citizen. His investigation leads him through very dangerous terrain involving the Soviets, an enormous amount of gold, and even people around him.
March violets - Philip Kerr
And we end up with possibly the best known crime novel series set in Berlin, that of the Scottish writer Philip kerr, passed away last year, and his more than famous Bernie gunther. This is the first title of the trilogy, Berlin Noir, whose action is situated in 1936, when the Olympics are about to start. Gunther, a former cop and private detective specialized in searching for missing persons, has to investigate two deaths that affect the highest positions of the Nazi party.