Picnic

In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists arranged a picnic on the boundary between Hungary and Austria. The site was no ordinary meadow. It sat on the Iron Curtain, a dangerous, heavily militarized frontier, and the tolerance shown by the country's highest officials could be withdrawn at any moment.

Rumors of the event spread, and thousands of East German vacationers gathered at Hungarian campgrounds, waiting for an opening while facing the threat of prison and the watch of Stasi agents. This was the Pan-European Picnic, which set the stage for the greatest border breach of the Cold War: hundreds crossed from the Communist East into the freedom of the West they had long hoped for.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, which some later called the end of history, all grew out of those dramatic hours. Matthew Longo draws on interviews to examine this turning point in historical change, along with the disillusionment that followed it.