change the structural relationship of marriage you can call yourself ms., but you are still in a picture i call concept that he thought she was lunatic is rise taking on the family and so on and so forth, but they agreed about this one issue in language and after he was on the show he wrote her a thank you note as he always did and he said you are good. he really enjoyed it and unfortunately she did not want to come back on the show, but it was a terrific show. she had resoundingly won the debate about women's liberation by a vote of the cambridge's students. >> you to watch this and other programs online a book tv.org. >> hello, everyone. i think we are about to get started.

my name is emily and i'm a manager here at the bookstore. a few housekeeping notes before we get to the good stuff. if you could please silence her cell phonent so we can all be in this moment together and at present. we are filming with book tv and if you have questions after the talk please use the microphones right here.- so, don't just raise your hand, definitely go to the microphone. if you're not familiar with as we do about 500 author events a year, so check out our events calendar. thank you so much. on the very excited to welcome nina willner today. nina served as a us army intelligence officer in berlin during the cold war. hotel you about that and since then worked in russia and eastern europe promoting eastern rites, children's causes and the rule of law for the us government and a variety of charities.

ininin o "forty autumns" she looks at a divided germany turk she tells the story of threeri generations of women she picked a chilling picture of life in a totalitarian regime. it shows how currents of oppression and perform indi affected individual lives. please welcome me in joining nina willner. [applause]. >> pinky, emily.tics and thank you, politics and prose and thank you all for joining me today for what is essentially my book launch. i appreciate you taking the time out-- is this on? is the microphone on? okay.

i can speak up. does that work? okay. here we go.e we i think that's it.. again, thank you all for being here today.oday, this thank you for sharing this day that marks quite a culmination of a journey for me. i would like to mention a few people who are with us today lieutenant general tom griffin who among other postings in his remarks-- remarkable in his ras a commander in berlin in 19 it 80s when i was posted in berlin. friends and colleagues are here to hear-- today. on it see i am honored she agreed to be the historian for my project. my family, including my mother who at the age of 20 the skate from east germany and ran to

freedom, eventually coming to america and without her courage i would not be here telling you this story today. so, "forty autumns", what is the book about? it's about a story about what happened to my family during the cold war, my mother's escape from east germany to the family she left behind, eight similes who were essentially trapped in a country and my going into east germany at-- as a young american intelligence officer leading operations oner soviet territory. the family story is set within the bigger picture-- the bigger framework of the bigger picture of the cold ward war and the americas superpower struggle for domin the arms race and conflict around the world with tensions that boarded at times on the brink of nuclear war and within that story is my family forcibly separated for 40 years never knowing if they

would see each other again.in. i would like to start off with a bit of background and put us on the map. i don't actually have a map today, but there are maps in the book. at the end of world war ii, 1935, the soviets and western allies are-- have defeated the nazis and making their way throughout germany to liberate the country. that americans are the first to arrive in the tiny village where my mother, a teenager at the time, her parents and her siblings live. the americans stay for a short while, but then explained to the villagers that the country has been divided the west will be administered by the western allies, the east by the soviets. that american sergeant tells the villagers their village falls in east that americans explain they can take one or two villagersex with them to the west, but no one in the village wants to break

up their family, but then my grandmother hearing the stories that the soviets are raping german women as they make their way into the country forces her oldest daughter, my mother who is 17 years old at this point to leave with the americans who are headed westward. several miles down the road she catapults herself over the side of the truck and goes running back home to her family and the next day the soviets arrived.ay the germany is essentially divided into two halves, western allies take control of what becomes west germany, the soviets occupied eastern half of the country which becomes east germany and deep inside east germany 110 miles inside east germany is berlin, which are just like germany itself is divided into two halves with west berlin run by the western allies in east berlin by the soviets. west berlin is essentially a tiny island of democracy and freedom completely encircled by communist

territory. that east becomes a police state based on communist authoritarianism, one-party communist dictatorship based on-- modeled on the soviet union with state security notice the secret police and is modeled on the soviet kgb and basically forces the population into submission through fear and intimidation. on the other side, the west administered by the nato allies and is based on democracy and freedom. as the as they begin to develop the west thats soviets stripped the east everything from railroad tracks to farm machinery to toilets even doorknobs, entire cities and towns are gutted. factors are dismantled to be reassembled in the soviet union. food is to be turned in. divided equally among the people, which is either slow to happen or does not happen at all

in the communist authorities called the state private land, private property and the soviets and communists impose rules which essentially amounts to conform or you are an enemy of the state. words against the regime or not to happen. my mother's village, the new soviet occupiers arrived telling the villagers the soviet army comes as friends and brothers to help build a new germany. but, they follow that with all food is to be relinquished to the soviet community immediately at and anyone found 40 food for himself or family will be shot, anyone who attacks a soviet soldier will be shot and so on. intense propaganda campaign ensues and more laws are instituted. the communist regime completely takes over society, initially

outlawing religion, censoring media and all forms of information, even trying to broadcast or jam broadcast signals signalsfrom the west. so, i would like to tes share with you and that from the book that helps illustrate the things o happening at this time. at this point my mother, my mother lived for a short time on a border town with west germany with her grandfather, so because it was a border town that authorities were often afraid people would-- that it would be quick access for people to make a break, so authorities kept a closese eye on young people. curfews were enforced. curfews were enforced, started before sundown and ended after dawn. punishments were levied on not just those who

attempted to flee, butut also on those who areha suspected of having knowledge of an escape and failed to report it. it. words against the regime were enough to have one escorted to the town, the local makeshift soviet headquarters, a converted stable where they were interrogated and afterwards hauled off to prison. it took some water than others to get the message. one day at school a student were milling at the back the classroom during a break and a b mischievous boy whomi sometimes had a tendency to talk too much went a step too far. how can they teach us the slot he scoffed? can you believe as teaching as cup-- stalin is a great leader.d? two years ago they were teaching as stalin was a great demon he said putting his wiggly fingers to his head and sticking out his tonguen ai and is the other boys snickered deeded looked up to see that communist party staring at him with a patron claire. he approached the boy by the scruff and hauled

him out of class. d it was not seen again. so, tens of thousands of people a year were sent to jail and hundreds would be executed. while many were able to flee east germany in the first year-- first five years it becomes harder. border guards are given b orders to shoot to kill. so, while food is coming into west germany in thee east people go hungry. my mother tells the story of being sent to work in the fields pulling carrots and being so hungry, but she does not even eat a single carrot for fear someone will see her eating unauthorized food and it she will be shot. in a village close by two teenage girls set out a cardboard sign, please give us food.ge the sovis not that image the soviets wanted pro trade and hauled the girls off to prison.

i know this story from having interviewed one of the girls who served a year and a half in jail for that offense. in the village my grandfather, a village teacher who is now required to teach soviet doctrine, marxist theory and even russian language, which he learned the night before teaching the next day. my grandmother tries to cope courage and her children to lay low, follow the rules and notig attract undue attention.ow, the children join the young pioneers. her close it by mother's closest sibling signed up to be a teacher in the soviet system, but hana sees what's going on around her and has no intentions of conforming almost all connections between east and west are severed with a currency division between east and west and inside east germanyll honda sees things are getting more dire and raises concerns to her grandfather. he takes her out and shows her where the rail

line has been-- that is going towards the west has been pulled up and are gone and he tells her if you want to get out, do it soon in less than a year this place will be one big prison. so, she then makes several attempts at escape, was with her grandfather's help, once where she is shot at by a soviet soldier, twice issues drive back into the east and the third time she makes it.time it is this escape that sets in motion the story , a journey which launches our family through the next 40 our years, through the cold war. over those next 40 years we learn little aboutle the family in the east. we are able to exchange a few later-- letters, but we knew little about what was happening in their lives and at the most we knew was that

east germany was a bleak, reclusive police state that had appalling human rights record and imprisoned its citizens. my grandfather, a principled man with a short fuse can't help but speak up when he sees injustice is all around him. he even writes a letter to the east german l leader speaking on behalf of the farmers suggesting a compromisen between the new laws off collectivization and what the farmers want, which is to keep some of their land. that did not go over too well, so now besides being the father of a criminal because he is associated-- because his daughter has escaped he is on the authority's watch list as being troublemaker and branded politically unreliable, so in order to keep his place in society he worked hard to prove himself to the authorities and he joins

the communist party. one year after hana fled to the west another child, little heidi, the ninth and last child in a family is born. my grandfather pleads with the authorities tomi see her daughter in the west and after many rejections the authorities finally agree to it, but it's under the condition that he will spy on hannah who is now working for the americans of the u.s. army military headquarters in heidelberg, westat germany. he he is allowed to take 5-year old heidi who will meet honda for the first time. this, as it turns out, will be the only time the two will ever meet in those 40 years. it's a brief but powerful meeting and heidi grows up idolizing her sister who has escaped, so much so that as an adult she never joined the communist party and in the book i described out heidi managed with the results of that decision.esults of thos

so, in the east the secret police intensify their control and manipulation of the population, perfecting their methods of penetrating every aspect of a person's life, reading their mail, listening in on conversations, tracking's their movements, gathering, rising details in attempt to learn peoples weaknesses so that can be exploited. .. talk about trying to get the family to inform on each other and send grandparents west on a second spy mission to find out about hannah's work and her new husband, my father, who is a u.s. army intelligence officer stationed at the headquarters and this is the last time my mother will see her parents. in the east, ramps up the use of informant using its own citizen to work as spies who support on their neighbors, classmates,

colleagues, teachers and family members. the program is a classmates, colleagues, teachers and known family members was the program was a success because no one knows who the informants are. it can be your friend, the person you share and office with, teammate on the sports team, the janitor in the sport janitor in your apartment complex. it would have 16 east germans informing on their fellow citizens. one interesting story in the former east germany and today historian tells a story after the wall fell in the early 1990s he was having a conversation with an agent who said i think i would have known if you student someone to spy on me and the man answered we didn't need to send anyone, people surrounded you. in fact two of his best friends had reported on him.

all this is to say this became a way of life. this is how life normalized for the people of east germany, people learned to adapt, self-centered their thoughts a way of survival. we survived by following rules, trying to stay below the start the radar and not confronting the system. in 1953 there is an uprising in east germany. workers protest working conditions and demonstrate for basic human rights, reform and freedom but the red army moved in with tanks, hundreds were killed, tens of thousands arrested for their role in participating, 100 organizes are executed and along with 20 soviet soldiers executed for refusing to shoot demonstrators.

now the secret police, the leadership tell the secret police to do whatever is necessary to make sure an uprising never happens again. by the 1960s 3 million, 1/6 of the population has fled and the regime decides the time has come to do something to stop the hemorrhaging of its labor force if they don't want to see their country collapse altogether. the border between east and west germany is secured in berlin due to the interconnected nature of the city, people are still able to escape into west berlin but the regime plans to someday build a structure, perhaps a wall to permanently separate west berlin from the east, cutting off the last hope of escape so by the early 1960s, 2000 east germans today are fleeing into west berlin. the east german leader tries to

go on the airways saying and this is a quote no one has any intention of building a wall. but one month later that is exactly what he does. what starts as a barbed wire brickwall becomes a 12 foot high, 3 foot thick concrete wall with a rounded top to prevent grasping, wire mesh. electrical fencing is installed, tripwires, searchlights and a death strip, 100 yard gauntlet of carefully raked stand that makes it easy to spot the footprints of escapees. the wall stretches over 100 miles completely encircling berlin stealing the country. one year later in 1962, to my grandparents disappointment his youngest son, my uncle is ordered to be a border guard to

serve at the berlin wall. between the building of the wall in 1961 and the fall of the wall in 1989 almost 150 people would be shot trying to escape, 1000 others killed trying to cross the border elsewhere or by drying -- drowning in the baltic sea. the berlin wall was built to keep the people in, but the east german leadership tells its people the wall is built to keep subversives out. subversives from the west out. the family in the east knows it and those in east germans might be fooled millions of others know exactly why the wall is built. from now my grandmother has built a wall of her own and even gave it a name, the family wall. i would like to read another excerpt of the book, the safe

haven she had begun to create the day the soviet stepped foot to shelter her family from the suffocation of the regime now had a name. she declared the family wall a sanctuary, refuge where the family would preserve their souls by keeping it out. the children followed the lead and the concept took hold. inside the family wall the children let down their guard, the fabric of east german society began to pray under the you of an orwellian climate of oppression and families wondered if they could trust their spouses, parents or siblings. she demanded family trust and loyalty. behind closed doors, she insisted they foster the idea of the family wall to have a chance against the regime out to crush the spirit of its people.

the cold war rages on. the space race takes off, nuclear arms race continues with the soviet union and the us building their nuclear arsenal, major world tensions to communism and democracy against one another, president kennedy and soviet leader khrushchev go head to head in various conflicts, khrushchev saved to the west we will bury you. after the wall was built east germany's reputation already at a low, plummets. an effort to upgrade its image the regime launches a scorch program the likes of which have never been seen in the history at all. suddenly the tiny country of east germany is producing extraordinary athletes. the country's reputation goes up for a while, the world stopping to watch every time in east german shatters a record at a world competition and at the olympics but then it is discovered that east germany is

doping its top athletes. o par speaks up against the regime, shot up more black marks and pays the price for his belligerence, he finally denounced, marginalized, kicked out of the communist party and is banished to a remote area in east germany, even sent to an insane asylum where he has to undergo reeducation training. the family makes its way, most of the children become teachers, live their lives by following rules, following laws, trying to preserve their dignity, trying to live a life of meaning in this restrictive environment. heidi, the little sister, grows up, they suffer the consequences professionally. and also create a sort of little secret hideaway.

a magical place, a flower garden that becomes a refuge where they can escape emotionally from the stress of society. they called a bungalow, becomes for them a tiny oasis of freedom and life energy. i won't when that story, you will have to read that one. in the 1970s, in america, my mother and father raised 6 children and we live a comfortable life in a land of freedom and opportunity. in the east heidi has a eight-year-old daughter who is an athletic dynamo and she catches the eye -- is swept up into the east german sports program. in 1978 in the us my brother albert who is with us today, and 18-year-old college sophomore on summer break, goes on the back

packing trip to west germany, and unbeknownst to any of us, my parents as well slips into east germany meet the family behind the iron curtain. another amazing story. in the 1980s the soviet union has its leader mikhail gorbachev, we have ronald reagan and the two work to improve relations. by the time i arrived in berlin in the early 1980s as a young us army intelligence officer the red army had 20 divisions facing the west. it is the height of the cold war and berlin is a hotbed of intelligence community. all sorts of intelligence activity from both sides of the berlin wall are being employed and i was given the job of leading intelligence issues into east earthenware we went in

teams of two to spy on the soviets. in the book i share a little bit about the teams that did this work, the risks and the dangers that came with the job including car chases, tensions, aggressive actions on the part of ciliated east germans who were targeting is constantly. study archive researchers came up with photos of my operations of agents surveilling me and my team. those pictures are also in the book. incredibly, while i was working any spurlin, my cousin who had become swept up into the intense world of east german sports had become a member of the east german training team, and was training, at the same time i was crossing through checkpoint charlie a couple miles away while conducting intelligence operations in the east.

we didn't know that until the wall fell, i tell the story of brave souls not related to the family, shot and killed in 1985 by soviet sentries on a mission to east germany. i spoke to family members, some were killed trying to escape. and political prisoners, and -- he has become a personal friend,

he spent several years sowing scraps of fabric together. and built a hot air balloon. attached a homemade burner to it. and their pictures in the book. taking gorbachev's lead for restructuring, and he refuses to budge from his position and vouched to be the last remaining hardline dictator in eastern

europe. then on november 9, 1989, the world is stunned when east germans are told they are free to go. 16 million people emerge from behind the iron curtain including my mother's family and we reunite after 40 years. in the book i detail how the fall came about, possibly by accident and i take you through that. i'm sometimes asked what is this book really about. what is the take away, what does it all mean? despite living under oppression and living with struggle and loss, "40 autumns: a family's story of courage and survival on both sides of the berlin wall" is a story of courage, resilience and the human spirit and also never giving up and never losing hope, and finally it is about the value of understanding the value of

freedom. i would like to end with this. i asked my uncle reinhard why he didn't join the communist party. he said i knew the system was wrong. i wasn't going to trade my integrity for material benefit. for me it wasn't about material things, it wasn't about wanting better products or food. none of that mattered to me. i just wanted to be free. thanks for your attention. [applause] i probably went a little over but we can take a few questions if anybody has any.

>> really compelling story. two somewhat closely related questions. the main one being the process of joining the communist party, during the cold war, was it easy to do, provided, what were the requirements of being able to join? with anyone, or anyone with criminal record or no criminal record allowed to join -- >> based on willingness to be a

member. and it was not difficult -- and they welcomed everyone. >> you said in your own operations in east germany, the way you put it was you went there, in your case to spy on the soviets, and i don't know if that was because we were not distinguishing between east german government people, and living and operating against east germany. is there a distinction? >> we were spying on the east germans and the soviets, anything washington wanted us to

get. they were the major power, we were interested in getting information, training, a lot of those things as well. it was an opportunity to keep an eye on what was going on in the east and getting as much information we could, anyplace we could. and it depended on what our requirements were on any given day. we were out there to get as much information as we could. >> we were able to get in as a representative of the press? >> i detail that, due to four power agreement after world war ii, it provided for all four powers of soviets, americans,

and french to have small teams to go into each other's territory, americans, brits and french, and all of east germany and soviets accessed west berlin and west germany. the official job was to exercise access rights by the agreement, and a lot of things. some things we did overtly and some things not so over. >> a human story in the context of a story of major world events and they were kind of diverse,

talk a little bit about your research process and how to do research. >> my research was done in three parts, one was archival or documentary photographic research. spent a lot of my research to american, british and russian archives. recent cia, kgb, state department cables that have been declassified, got a lot of information from stazi archives, some memoirs, diaries, and photographs were important to my research.

interviews and conversation, with the family. when i lived in moscow i was close to the family and able to visit them more often. we had a lot of great conversations around the dinner table and that sort of thing. i was able to talk to eastern europeans, former czechoslovakia, hungary, their perspective, their experiences during the cold war, to understand the experience. and political prisoners and going to all the locations in the book. and research strips from the

little village of swanberg, and met the town manager. and the little village museum and basically said throw the keys on the porch when you are done and i went in there and it was like walking back into time, so you could research the cold war in that village and everything from communist flags to communist party propaganda. and crests and ledgers, and there was a mockup of a classroom. some of those chairs and tables

are used in my father's classroom, i was able to go to paradise bungalow. often i have been back to paradise bungalow often. i visited a town where my grandfather and family were banished after he spoke up too many times and that was really important and going back to berlin which if any of you spend any time in berlin during the cold war you know what it looks like then. it resembles nothing of what it looks like once upon a time. >> several years ago g edwards lifted a biography, clearly early and after the war, a seminar at georgetown university, several people who were there including clap son,

talked about the early days of 45 and 46 when american intelligence penetrated these -- very interesting, they said in the east german government by 47. can you remind me what years wasn't the us had diplomatic relations with the ddr, is that where you are? >> in the 70s it began. >> joan clark, career diplomat, and building for the american embassy and east berliners showed a building and we won't take that one. underneath is one of your tunnels because stazi is right across the street and amazed

that she knew that. change from a moral point of view, people chose side hands we in america in iran, similar tools, how do you equate cold war trying to have that? >> that is a tough question. that requires a lengthy discussion and there is no simple answer to that one. that is something we can talk about if you stick around after i sign a few books. i will go into that a little more. that is a loaded question.

>> did these stories tell you when you were growing up, hands this is the store you want to to tell. >> i opened the book and won't spoil that story, when i am told you don't have any relatives and the truth of the matter is my father besides being a u.s. army intelligence officer happens to be a holocaust survivor so he was alone, my mother did not have her family. and was always with me from that point on, my mother didn't talk about it a lot.

as both my parents did, we didn't have much information coming from the east. all we knew was, talk about her little brothers and sisters, after that that was it. any letter that came from the east, it was able to come out, was very sparse information. if it had anything it was information that showed the regime, having a great time here, didn't get much information, got a few photographs, we poured over those and tried to get as much information as we could, we didn't have much information in 40 years at all. it wasn't until the wall fell that i was able to meet these people. the first 10 or 15 years after

the wall fell, it was time for us to get to know each other, time for them to get a fresh breath of freedom and learn to adapt and get on with their lives and unify germany. it wasn't until 10 or 15 years after the wall fell that we got to know each other, and little by little in the next years, heard more of the story, different relatives. some of them, some amazing discoveries like when my cousin and i realized, when she told me she was training for the olympics in east berlin, the years that i was there, i grabbed a map and said where were you? we looked at it and we only learn these stories after the

wall fell, piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle and that is how the book was written. any other questions? >> tim powell. i just wanted to say when i knew you in college 30 years ago, i thought you were both fearless and i know why. just fantastic. >> an old friend from college, great. if there are no other questions, thank you all for coming. [applause]