Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall

by Helena Merriman

Overview

He escaped from one of the world’s most brutal regimes.Then, he decided to tunnel back in. 
 
In the summer of 1962, a young student named Joachim Rudolph dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin were dozens of men, women, and children—all willing to risk everything to escape.

From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of this most remarkable Cold War rescue mission. Drawing on interviews with the survivors and Stasi files, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the Stasi spy who threatened the whole enterprise, and the love story that became its surprising epilogue.
 
Tunnel 29 was also the first made-for-TV event of its kind; it was funded by NBC, who wanted to film an escape in real time. Their documentary—which was nearly blocked from airing by the Kennedy administration, which wanted to control the media during the Cold War—revolutionized TV journalism.

Ultimately, Tunnel 29 is a success story about freedom: the valiant citizens risking everything to win it back, and the larger world rooting for them to triumph.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541788824
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	08/24/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	174,335
File size:	53 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Helena Merriman is a broadcast journalist who presented and produced Tunnel 29, BBC Radio 4's new podcast about a miraculous escape under the Berlin Wall. She is also the co-creator of British Podcast Award-winning series The Inquiry, and previously worked as a reporter for the BBC in the Middle East. She lives in London, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

1 The Beach 3

2 The First Escape 6

3 The Long Walk 11

4 The Rebrand 14

5 The Smuggler 18

6 The Radio 23

7 The Tank 27

8 A Thousand Little Things 30

9 The House of One Thousand Eyes 34

10 Operation Rose 40

11 Mousetrap 43

12 Snow 45

13 The Escapes 46

14 The Boy in Short Pants 48

15 Valley of the Clueless 55

16 Binoculars 59

17 The Watch-tower 65

18 The Camp 68

19 The Spy 71

20 The File 74

21 Evi and Peter (and Walter and Wilhelm Too) 80

22 The Girrmann Group 83

23 The House of the Future 87

24 The Factory 91

25 Concrete 95

26 The Cemetery 97

27 Shift-work 101

28 A New Name 103

29 The Bomb 107

30 Blisters 109

31 The TV Producer 111

32 The Deal 117

33 New York 121

34 Cameras 122

35 Umbrellas 124

36 Death Strip 127

37 Wilhelm, Again 130

38 Ground Rules 131

39 The Leak 133

40 The Second Tunnel 138

41 The Lovers 142

42 The Day Before 145

43 7 August 148

44 Hohenschönhausen 160

45 Mole-hunt 169

46 Silence 172

47 The Show Trial 174

48 The Butcher 181

49 Claus's Story 187

50 Paris 191

51 Numbers 196

52 The Last Visit 198

53 The Messenger 199

54 Investigations 201

55 Maps 202

56 Reuven 203

57 14 September 205

58 Walter and Wilhelm 222

59 The Search 225

60 Film-reel 226

61 The Bug 229

62 The Pushchair 230

63 The Party 232

64 The Canoe 234

65 The Plane 236

66 The Second Party 238

67 The Press Conference 240

68 The Library 243

69 A Message 245

70 The Film 247

71 The Letter 253

72 Hamlet 255

73 The Gold Mercedes 257

74 Final Report 261

75 Airborne 264

Epilogue 266

Afterword 275

What They Did Next 280

Notes 287

Bibliography 302

Locations 305

Acknowledgements 307

Index 310

Photo section appears after page 168

Editorial Reviews

05/17/2021

Based on a BBC podcast, Merriman’s intriguing yet uneven debut history focuses on Joachim Rudolph, a young East German who, in 1962, helped 29 people escape to West Germany through a tunnel he dug underneath the Berlin Wall. Merriman details Rudolph’s war-torn childhood; teenage participation in anti-Soviet demonstrations, where he witnessed East German tanks crushing fellow protesters; escape to West Germany by crawling overnight through a field; and planning and digging of the tunnel with a group of coconspirators (“hours hacking into clay... pulling out small handfuls at a time”). Fleshing out the story’s Cold War context, Merriman also describes President Kennedy’s delayed reaction to the wall’s construction, East Germany’s use of informants to stop the exodus to the West (Rudolph’s first attempt to help refugees escape was thwarted by the Stasi), and NBC’s agreement to fund construction of the tunnel in exchange for documentary footage. Unfortunately, the overwrought narrative style distracts (“And so Joachim joins the ranks of fatherless German children and a seed of anger blooms in his stomach that he doesn’t yet know what to do with”), and the brief chapters, which shift viewpoints abruptly, sacrifice depth and clarity for the sake of action. This Cold War history doesn’t quite live up to its potential. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating account of a daring escape from a repressive regime as well as a vivid portrait of life in Berlin in the early days of the wall—and of the international impact of events in that city. Merriman effectively maintains the pace and suspense, giving readers a novelistic narrative with a solid foundation of fact. An entertaining real-life Cold War thriller following a group of students who escaped under ‘the Wall of all walls.’”
 —Kirkus Reviews

“A gripping, real-life page turner, packed with great characters stuck in impossible situations. This is nonfiction at its very best, and more dramatic and incredible than any fiction I have read for a very long time.”
 —John O’Farrell, cohost of the We Are History podcast

“Merriman takes us inside not only the tunnel, but also the personal lives of those who dug it. We feel we’re experiencing history as it happens. It’s a gripping story of bravery, determination, and, ultimately, love.”
 —Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin

“‘Tunnel 29’, by Helena Merriman, a British journalist and broadcaster, began as a popular podcast, aired by the BBC in 2019 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Happily, the written account is no less captivating….Ms Merriman weaves these strands together skilfully, offering enough context to explain her characters’ actions without distracting from their adventures…. Ms Merriman’s well-crafted book does justice to the extraordinary bravery of her characters.”—The Economist

“[A]n audacious and compelling tale, told with narrative tension and novelistic drive, creating a fascinating portrayal of life in Berlin in the early days of the wall.”—Hannah Beckerman, The Observer

“The chapters on the day of the escape are possibly the most suspenseful I have ever read, in fiction as well as nonfiction."—The Scotsman

“Merriman hitches her story to a band of protagonists – digger Joachim Rudolph, wannabe escapees Renate and Wolfdieter Sternheimer, spy Siegfried Uhse – and expertly ups the tempo of perspective changes until the narrative tension is as taut as in a thriller.”—Philip Oltermann, The Guardian

“[Y]ou start to care about these people, to feel the taut urgency of their work and despair at the cruelty of a system that was as deranged as it was effective. Merriman weaves together three separate but deeply connected narratives: the first, a remarkable feat of subterranean construction by some very brave men; the second, the omnipresent stranglehold of the not-secret-at-all police state on the entire population; and the third, a groundbreaking, award-winning NBC documentary that aired in December 1962 — one of the first reality shows in television history.”—The Washington Post

“[A]bsolutely compelling, written in the style of a novelist…chilling… Tunnel 29 is a riveting story about what happens when people lose their freedom.”—New York Journal of Books

“[R]iveting.”—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2021-06-16
The inside story of a daring episode by a group of German students who dug into East Berlin to help their friends and families escape.

London-based broadcast journalist Merriman focuses primarily on Joachim Rudolph, who grew up in East Berlin after the post–World War II division of Germany. As a young boy and teenager, he took advantage of the ability to travel between the two sides of the city to enjoy the freer lifestyle in West Berlin. In 1961, however, the East German authorities erected the Berlin Wall, and, almost overnight, life under the communist government became even more oppressive. Rudolph and a friend escaped in September of that year, and soon he was a student at the technical university in West Berlin, studying communications engineering. But the wall remained a key fact in the lives of everyone in Berlin and a vivid symbol of the differences between two systems. Rudolph soon found himself in a group planning to dig a tunnel into East Berlin to rescue friends and family left behind. In addition to chronicling Rudolph’s story, the author cuts away to follow others, including the informant who nearly managed to expose the entire plot to the Stasi after he was caught smuggling contraband across the border and the NBC crew leader who found out about the diggers and recorded their efforts from start to finish. The result is a fascinating account of a daring escape from a repressive regime as well as a vivid portrait of life in Berlin in the early days of the wall—and of the international impact of events in that city. Merriman effectively maintains the pace and suspense, giving readers a novelistic narrative with a solid foundation of fact.

An entertaining real-life Cold War thriller following a group of students who escaped under “the Wall of all walls.

Kirkus Reviews