The Bridge of Love to Freedom

Sixteen-year old Norbert Anleger enters a dangerous world of Soviet and East German brutality, fending for himself in rubble-strewn Berlin when his West German family is killed. Fred Harrington, a newly deployed American Air Force pilot, joins the monumental effort to airlift food, coal and supplies into West Berlin to save its two million citizens from starving or freezing to death-the Soviets' intention. As a laborer unloading the C-47 and C-54 cargo planes at Tempelhof Airport, Norbert meets American GIs and soon becomes indispensible as a German-English interpreter. Norbert and Fred's lives become intertwined when Norbert's beautiful sister, Heidi, thought to be dead after being gang-raped by Russian soldiers, emerges as Fred's fiancée. Kerstan's story is exceptionally well-researched, blending the fascinating history of Berlin and its enemies and allies, with colorful characters and unfolding drama from 1930-1990. There is so much rich background that when the author writes of U. S. President John Kennedy's visit to Berlin in 1963, Kennedy's now-famous speech (transcript included in full) touches the reader's heart, mind and soul as never before. The saga's complexity lies in the different metaphors and aspects of freedom-those who want to take it away, those who risk everything seeking it, and those brave people and noble symbols which act as a bridge of love to freedom.