One of my most anticipated of the year turned out to be easily one of the best things I’ve read all year. This book, which initially made me hesitate because it’s based on a BBC Radio 4 podcast, was simply outstanding. Journalist Helena Merriman tells the story of German student Joachim Rudolph, who, in the summer of 1962, excavated an escape tunnel between East and West Berlin.

Rudolph had bravely escaped to West Berlin before dedicating himself to the rather terrifying goal of helping dozens of people, ranging in age from babies to grandparents, also make the harrowing escape against the most dangerous of odds. This includes the infiltration of the diggers by a Stasi spy, who fed details of their plan back to his handlers.

I can’t even write about this without getting chills. The story is so remarkable, and so unlikely in its outcome that it defies belief, and yet. It’s an incredible example of the people who dared to defy authoritarian regimes and help free others at unimaginable risk to themselves.

Merriman interviews Rudolph himself and the other still-living survivors of the escape plot, as this was far from a lone man’s endeavor. She also draws on declassified Stasi files to piece it together, which are especially revealing around the spy/mole, who was a gay man caught smuggling goods and thus recruited, providing a lot of insight into the culture of the times.

She also breaks down very clearly so much of how things operated during this time, which I’ve found really confusing in other readings, perhaps because laws changed so frequently. Merriman’s detailing of this history and politics is the best I’ve ever read.

And to use the cliche, it reads exactly like a novel, a totally gripping thriller. I could not wait to pick this up every evening — the level of detail, the poignant moments or bits of recollection the storytellers have held onto over the years, and the high stakes and constant twists — show me any spy novel that could do this better. It’s just all the better because it’s true.

I read this around the time of the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s building on August 13, and German TV was showing nonstop documentaries and interviews around the topic. It was a testament to Merriman’s storytelling abilities and gift for detail that when events she’d described in the narrative were depicted in these shows, they played out and looked exactly as I’d imagined them from her writing. Footage of an elderly woman who got halfway out of an apartment window ready to jump, with West Berliners pulling on her from below and East Berlin policemen trying to pull her back in, was a powerful example.

Pitch-perfect narrative nonfiction.

What an amazing book and a true story as well. I do remember the Berlin Wall and how we did learn about it. Never, though did I fully realize the things that went on behind that wall, the struggle to escape from the totalitarian rule of East Berlin and its maniacal leaders.

The story centers on the escape plans, those of building a tunnel, in order to be free. It focuses on the hardships, the struggles, the loneliness, and heartbreak that occurred when the wall went up and families were separated, children from parents, wives from husband, and the road to ever seeing them again was cut off. It was a story of deprivation, of being watched all the time by hidden members of the Staci in their efforts to control all. The list of those who were spies showed, years later, the husbands who exposed wives, the children who turned on their parents, friend against friend, in an effort to appease those in control. The methods used when "traitors" were uncovered was cruel and inhuman, often resulting in death or years in prison, using mind control and other tortures to elicit the information the Staci needed. It was in essence a trip into hell from which no one escaped and if they were released the prisoners never were the same.

It was a story of authoritarian control, a time of Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Communism, and others who felt helpless to intervene knowing that the tenuous thread of nuclear war hung in the balance.

There were the success stories, those who managed to escape and Tunnel 29, tells us the harrowing tale of those brave young men who dug tunnels to help those on the other side escape. They all knew their fate, if they were captured and the informants were running rampant so danger lurked behind every ear that heard a plan for escape.

This powerful story is both amazingly told and a caution to all of us as to what happens when a government holds total control over their people. It is definitely recommended as a non-fiction book that delivers on so many levels.

Thank you to Helena Merriman whose exhausted research made this such a moving story, PublicAffairs, and NetGalley for a copy of this story already published on August 24, 2021.

A real-life thriller about the people who were willing to risk everything by digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall.

I went into Tunnel 29 without knowing that it was a fuller version of a massively popular podcast, but now that I’ve finished it, I can absolutely confirm that its popularity is deserved. Helena Merriman expertly pieced together interviews, news reports, and Stasi reports into a fast-paced narrative, and I really applaud her efforts.

All of this being said, I can definitely tell in reading it that this information came first in podcast form— it’s dramatic and frequently reminds readers who people were and where their narratives left off the last time we heard about them. Unfortunately, this also means that it doesn’t translate into print as well as it appears on audio. I had a really hard time getting into this book and did need to make the switch to the audiobook once it became available. After that point, I was hooked and FLEW through this story.

With enough drama and espionage to merit its own miniseries, Tunnel 29 tells the story of post-war Germany through the eyes of Joachim Rudolph— his family’s flight to Berlin as the Russians invaded, the division of the city, the rise of the wall, and his daring escape into West Berlin. But when his story of escape could have ended, he decided that his work wasn’t finished. Joining up with the Girrmann Group, West Berlin’s largest escape network, Joachim and many other university students work to engineer a tunnel under the border to bring people to safety.

In a story filled with informants, spies, world leaders, and a documentary crew, the building of Tunnel 29 is meticulously detailed. In a political climate filled with more walled borders than ever before, Merriman skillfully combines perspectives on the human cost of one wall and a single attempt to move past it that resonated across the whole world.

Tunnel 29 is a jaw dropping book, absolutely unmissable. From the 325+ books I've read thus far this year this is one of the most gripping and absorbing. In fact, I would classify it as life changing. Why? This is not fiction but a true story. Real people. The author interviewed Joachim Rudolph who was one of the tunnel diggers beneath the Berlin Wall. His fascinating story is one of courage and survival amidst the most horrendous circumstances from the time he was a child when he experienced his first separation and starvation during WWII to the August 12-13, 1961 building of the Berlin Wall to dangerous tunnel digging. A relative of mine managed to escape in the 1960s so this era is incredibly interesting to me. The author gives an excellent background history of Stalin and Ulbricht as well as the German Democratic Republic.

Stalin sent his troops into Berlin before anyone else could arrive to pillage and destroy. Women were brutally raped. Families were torn apart. I cannot begin to fathom the depth of terror of living during WWII as well as this. The author describes the Stasi and how they capitalized on intelligence. During this time there was at least one Stasi agent to every sixty three people! No wonder no one could trust anyone else. Friends could be infiltrators and people were "retracted".

Literally overnight after a planned blackout barbed wire quickly went up through Berlin, cutting people off from their world. Soon concrete blocks went up with more layers of defense including metal spikes and sand so footprints from escapees could be seen. Some managed to escape in desperation by jumping from windows, others tried running through gaps in the wire. Joachim was determined to find a way to help others escape so he and a group tunneled which is more difficult than I had imagined. Talk about dangerous!

So many things struck me in this book from the first escape to the sheer numbers of Stasi to the details of the building of the wall to the separation of families for many years and daring escape attempts to tasting pineapple for the first time to the marked jars with cloths to Siegfried Uhse's story to "stupid leftovers" to repurposing concentration camps to Americanization of Berlin to the significance of Joachim's shoes.

This book gave me goosebumps. If I had to choose one word, it would be "powerful". Kudos to Mr. Rudolph and Helena Merriman for telling this important story. What an honour it must have been to talk with Joachim! I really like the explanation of what happened to the key characters. A documentary was done using actual tunnel escape footage at the time which is also described.

My sincere thank you to Perseus Books and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this compelling book! Much appreciated.

A truly inspirational book about overcoming all the odds to escape communism during the Cold War. It is a great book on how the individuals worked to get to freedom.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.