EAN: 9780393540772

THE PICNIC - MATTHEW LONGO GEBUNDEN

In August 1989  a group of Hungarian activists organised a picnic on the border of Hungary and
Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic-it was located on the dangerous militarised
frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could
be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumour  thousands of East German vacationers packed
Hungarian campgrounds  awaiting an opportunity  fearing prison  surveilled by lurking Stasi
agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War
history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West. The
fall of the Berlin Wall  the end of the Soviet Union-the so-called end of history-all would
flow from those dramatic hours. Drawing on exclusive interviews  Matthew Longo gives an
invaluable account of historical change  and the disillusionment that followed  as emotionally
powerful as it is revealing.

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