"For the fifty years between the end of the war and the end of the century, Berlin remained under the control of two contending superpowers, the United States - supported by Great Britain and France - and the Soviet Union. A cauldron of tension, intrigue, and conflict, the city served as a microcosm of the Cold War that divided all of Europe, a symbol that became concrete with the construction in 1961 of the Berlin Wall, which cut the city in two for the next twenty-eight years."--BOOK JACKET.

"Robert P. Grathwol and Donita M. Moorhus here tell the story in words and pictures of that city and the thousands of American soldiers and their families who served and lived there between 1945 and 1994. Oral histories depict the people, places, and events that comprise the history of this vital outpost of democracy in the middle of a Communist bloc."--BOOK JACKET.

"The book also recounts how American military personnel helped preserve the conditions that allowed Berliners to reduce the Wall to rubble in November of 1989 as a prelude to the peaceful reunification of Germany."--BOOK JACKET.