History Day - Post War United States (1945-1968)

The City Becomes a Symbol : The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Berlin, 1945-1949 by Center of Military History, issuing body. Stivers, William, author. Carter, Donald A., author. Title variant: United States Army in the occupation of Berlin "This book covers the period between the closing days of World War II in Europe in 1945 and the culmination of the Berlin airlift in 1949. It is based on the records of the U.S. military government in Berlin, the official records of many of the U.S. Army elements involved in the occupation, and the military and diplomatic correspondence of senior leaders in the United States, Britain, and France. Although much of it is focused upon the U.S. Army units involved in the occupation, the nature of events in Berlin requires a different perspective. This is also a story of soldier-diplomats, whose actions during the first five years of the occupation laid the groundwork for U.S.-Soviet relations for the rest of the twentieth century. And finally, it is also the story of the citizens of West Berlin, whose activism during the early postwar years rejected the overtures of Communist emissaries and firmly oriented their portion of the city toward the West."--From the Preface. GPO Bookstore: The City Becomes a Symbol tells the story of the first four tumultuous years of the U.S. Army's occupation of West Berlin and how Berlin became the epicenter of superpower confrontation across all of Europe. The division of Berlin with occupation by Western and Soviet military forces set the stage for the decades-long face-off between the U.S. Army and Soviet forces until the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Ultimately it was the citizens of Berlin who played a major role in determining the fate and political direction of their city and the whole of Germany until it's reintegration as a unified nation. Get a first-hand account of this book on our blog: https://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2017/12/18/holiday-reads-for-year-end-2017/

A City Torn Apart: Building of the Berlin Wall LibGuides: "Book and DVD were published in Conjunction With a Symposium Given on 27 October 2011 at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. From the end of World War II in 1945, the question of Berlin's status 90 miles within the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and the Soviet Union's zone of occupation, along with the status of Germany among the community of nations, remained a source of tension between the East and West. The first of a three-part project, this collection covers the period of 1945 to the end of 1961. The accompanying DVD contains over 370+ documents and more than 4,800+ pages of material.."