The Tunnels

The True Story of Tunnel 29 and the Daring Escapes Under the Berlin Wall

By: Greg Mitchell

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

In the summer of 1962, one year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of daring young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture and even death to liberate friends, lovers and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the wall.

Then, as the world's press heard about the secret projects, two television networks raced to be the first to document them from the inside, funding two separate tunnels for exclusive rights to film the escapes. In response President John F. Kennedy and his administration, wary of anything that might raise tensions and force a military confrontation with the Soviets, maneuvered to quash both documentaries.

As Greg Mitchell's riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Berlin's most wanted man; the tunneller who had already served four years in the East German gulag; the Stasi informer who betrayed the 'CBS tunnel'; the young East Berliner who escaped with her baby, then married one of the tunnellers; and an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English Channel.

Capturing the hopes and fears of everyday Berliners, the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police and the political tensions of the Cold War, The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive listen whose themes still reverberate today.

©2016 Greg Mitchell (P)2016 Random House AudioBooks