The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War
J.W. Mohnhaupt
Nov 2019 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Jacques Roy
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6 hr 57 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
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.
“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.
About the author
Internationally bestselling author Jan Mohnhaupt has written for Germany’s top newspapers and magazines. The Zookeepers’ War is his first full-length work of nonfiction.
Shelley Frisch’s translations from German, which include biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl, and Franz Kafka, have been awarded numerous translation prizes. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Shelley Frisch’s translations from German, which include biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl, and Franz Kafka, have been awarded numerous translation prizes. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
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