“Tunnel 29”, a new book by Helena Merriman, tells the story of a network of students and activists in the early 1960s aiming to smuggle out East Berliners under the wall
The hero of the tale is Joachim Rudolph, whom Ms Merriman interviewed extensively in 2018. A young engineering student with a tragic family history, Mr Rudolph flees East Berlin less than two months after the wall’s construction—before concrete reinforcements, trigger-happy guards and wide strips of no-man’s-land were to render it almost unbreachable .
The narrative focuses on the escapades of the gang of young men who sought to burrow into the east from a plastic-straw factory in West Berlin’s Bernauer Strasse, which ran adjacent to the wall. Early enthusiasm soon yields to sagging spirits and abandoned attempts as the group confront a battery of obstacles, from water leakage and equipment shortages to the ever-present threat of Stasi infiltration.
Politics hums in the background. John F. Kennedy, who became obsessed with the divided city, makes an appearance; so do Nikita Khrushchev, who enjoyed squeezing West Berlin, the “testicles” of the West, and Erich Mielke, the sadistic Stasi chief.
Ms Merriman weaves these strands together skilfully, offering enough context to explain her characters’ actions without distracting from their adventures. Smells, sounds and tastes give texture to the story. The ecstasy that Mr Rudolph, brought up on flavourless eastern swill, finds in the pineapple jam he is served on reaching the West is a particular delight. The dusty claustrophobia of the dig, conducted in night-time shifts over months, is palpable.
The supporting cast is richly drawn, ranging from Siegfried Uhse, a gay, closeted hairdresser in West Berlin blackmailed by the Stasi into collaboration, to Reuven Frank, anexecutive who threatens to resign when the Kennedy administration blocks the network from airing the film. Most of the players find some sort of redemption in the happy denouement; the family reunions described in a late scene are moving.
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