The Picnic - An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain

Matthew Longo

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In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists did the unthinkable: they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain - and held a picnic. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German 'holiday-makers' had made their way to the border, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The stage was set for the greatest border breach in Cold War history. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union - the so-called end of history - all would flow from what happened next. Drawing on dozens of original interviews with those involved, Matthew Longo reconstructs this world-shaping event and its tumultuous aftermath.

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2024