ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains in detail how the division of Germany came about in the first place. It demonstrates that the confrontation of the two chief antagonists of the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Russia, on German soil was the cause of many dangerous conflicts in Europe, mainly centred on the fate of Berlin and fuelled by the growing build-up of German armies and a nuclear arsenal on both sides. The book also presents that the second Berlin crisis was not resolved until the East German regime closed the last loophole for escape by building the Berlin Wall in August 1961. It provides that the transformation process produced a crisis of identity in East Germany which still lingers on. The book deals with the public debate on how the second German dictatorship should be remembered in relation to that of Hitler.
