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Tunnel 29, a true story about the Berlin Wall

The true story about a Berlin tunnel in the days of the Cold War

Holiday time often means reading a crime story on the beach but why not go for a true, but at least as thrilling, story on how to escape from East Germany in 1962? These were the days of US president John F Kenny, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev and the East Germany secret service Stasi’s feared boss Erich Mielke – and of the Wall.

British broadcast journalist Helena Merriman has written Tunnel 29, the true story of how young students in West Berlin manages to dig a tunnel to the eastern parts of the city and how East Berliners could escape that way.

In 1962, technology student Joachim Rudolph had escaped from the East. The wall was cutting the city into two halves but instead of just enjoying the student life in West Berlin, Rudolph and other students decided to dig a tunnel giving others the chance to leave the Eastern parts of the divided city.

Merriman has interviews the survivors and read thousands of pages of Stasi documents. She first made a BBC Radio 4 podcast about the amazing tunnel project and has now published a book about this brave project in the time of the Cold War. It describes the leaking tunnel and the fear for Stasi infiltration but also of strong determination.

The podcast has had over six million downloads and the TV rights were bought by Sister Productions.

in 2014, Merriman co-created The Inquiry podcast for the BBC – a weekly current affairs programme and she hosted the show for the next four years. She is now working on her next series for BBC Sounds and Radio 4. It will be released in January, 2022.

Tunnel 29 is a true story about a daring project in the divided Berlin during the Cold War.

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