The saddled cow

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As "The Times" correspondent in East Berlin, the author of this book witnessed the collapse of the communist state and the unification of Germany. In this book, she explores the country's history, drawing on exclusive interviews with spies, politicians and dissedents speaking openly for the first time. Anne McElvoy recalls how exiled German communists met in seedy Moscow hotels to plan the new state, and she analyzes the role of the omnipotent Stasi Secret Police and the Berlin Wall. She relates the stories of the country's legendary spy chief, Markus Wolf, and its master propagandist Karl Eduard von Schnitzler. Finally she follows East Germany's dramatic absorption into the West, and the fate of its people after unification.