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The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War
The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War
The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War
Ebook336 pages4 hours

The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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The unbelievable true story of the Cold War’s strangest proxy war, fought between the zoos on either side of the Berlin Wall.

“The liveliness of Mohnhaupt’s storytelling and the wonderful eccentricity of his subject matter make this book well worth a read.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Living in West Berlin in the 1960s often felt like living in a zoo, everyone packed together behind a wall, with the world always watching. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, East Berlin and its zoo were spacious and lush, socialist utopias where everything was perfectly planned... and then rarely completed.

Berlin’s two zoos in East and West quickly became symbols of the divided city’s two halves. So no one was terribly surprised when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms race—rather than stockpiling nuclear warheads, they competed to have the most pandas and hippos. Soon, state funds were being diverted toward giving these new animals lavish welcomes worthy of visiting dignitaries. West German presidential candidates were talking about zoo policy on the campaign trail. And eventually politicians on both side of the Wall became convinced that if their zoo proved to be inferior, that would mean their country’s whole ideology was too.

A quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you’ve heard before, The Zookeepers’ War is an epic tale of desperate rivalries, human follies, and an animal-mad city in which zookeeping became a way of continuing politics by other means.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 12, 2019
ISBN9781501188510
Author

J.W. Mohnhaupt

Jan Mohnhaupt has written for many of Germany’s leading newspapers and magazines. The Zookeepers’ War is his first book to be translated into English. He lives in Munich, where he’s happy to be close to one of his favorite zoos.

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3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is being marketed as an "International Bestseller" and maybe it is, but unless you have a deep or personal interest in the Berlin Zoo during the Cold War it may be a lot of trivia about minor characters you will soon forget. Curiously there is little about animals and mostly backgrounds, endless detailed backgrounds, of zoo officials. The book is 90% done and new characters and backgrounds are being introduced. Apparently the Berlin Zoo was an important part of the culture there during the Cold War and this reveals the inside story of the major players and context. It has some fun anecdotal stories, the "Moby Dick" of the Rhine was my favorite which composed about 5 pages.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    politics, animals, Germany, zoo, nonfiction, historical research ***** The publisher's blurb is okay, but only centers on the different options and methods of a succession of zoo directors in Germany and particularly in Berlin. Much more is presented and very well done. It presents a potted history of the attitudes of both the populace and zoo directors/employees worldwide over the course of at least a century and how current understanding came to be. Things that were accepted and predictable have become reprehensible. It also demonstrates how ego becomes overwhelming for some and how that affects the public good. The political climate is important, but it's the internal politics of the professional community that is so astounding to those of us on the outside of the moats and tempered glass walls. My two most memorable parts are the white whale in the Rhine, and the procurement of white whales from within Hudson Bay in Canada! Many thanks to Shelley Frisch for the flawless translation that allows non German readers to enjoy and learn from this book.I requested and received a free ebook copy from Simon and Schuster Publishing via NetGalley.Many thanks, but for free one doesn't get the photos!

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The Zookeepers' War - J.W. Mohnhaupt

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