Assistant professor Edith Sheffer is a historian of modern European history whose research centers on social and cultural change in 20th century Germany.
In her most recent publication, "Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain," Sheffer examines the role that German citizens played in perpetuating the physical boundaries that separated them.
Her statement that "It goes without saying that the infamous Iron Curtain was not as impenetrable as is often believed" (at humanexperience.stanford.edu/burnedbridge) is an insult to the several hundred people that were killed at the border while trying to escape!
akeil 6 months ago
Prof. Sheffer's theory that "the wall in the head propelled the wall in the ground" (at 6:30) is absolute nonsense. Apparently she is not aware that the one and only reason the border was fortified by East Germany was the ever-increasing number of people fleeing from east to west. My dad needed two attempts and an experienced "escape agent" to flee from east to west - and that was over the "green border" in a rural area and before any wall had been built.
akeil 6 months ago