Disclosure : This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

The Race Against The Stasi

Cycling Book of the Year – Cross British Sports Book Awards When the `Iron Curtain` descended across Europe, Dieter Wiedemann was a hero of East German sport. A podium finisher in The Peace Race, the Eastern Bloc equivalent of the Tour de France, he was a pin-up for the supremacy of socialism over the `fascist` West. Unbeknownst to the authorities, however, he had fallen in love with Sylvia Hermann, a girl from the other side of the wall. Socialist doctrine had it that the two of them were `class enemies`, and as a famous athlete Dieter`s every move was pored over by the Stasi. Only he abhorred their ideology, and in Sylvia saw his only chance of freedom. Now, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, he plotted his escape. In 1964 he was delegated, once and once only, to West Germany. Here he was to ride a qualification race for the Tokyo Olympics, but instead committed the most treacherous of all the crimes against socialism. Dieter Wiedemann, sporting icon and Soviet pawn, defected to the other side. Whilst Wiedemann fulfilled his lifetime ambition of racing in the Tour de France, his defection caused a huge scandal.The Stasi sought to `repatriate` him, with horrific consequences both for him and the family he left behind. Fifty years on, and twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dieter Wiedemann decided it was time to tell his story. Through his testimony and that of others involved, and through the Stasi file, which has stalked him for half a century, Herbie Sykes uncovers an astonishing tale. It is one of love and betrayal, of the madness at the heart of the cold war, and of the greatest bike race in history.

Related Products:

A Race for Madmen Stasi Child: A Compelling Cold War Thriller To Hell on a Bike: Riding Paris-Roubaix: the Toughest Race in Cycling Race to Dakar Race Across the World: The incredible story of the world`s greatest road race – the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon The Ronde: Inside the World`s Toughest Bike Race On the Other Side of Freedom: Race and Justice in a Divided America The Complete Book of the Tour De France Left For Dead: 30 Years On – The Race is Finally Over We Were Eight Years in Power: `One of the foremost essayists on race in the West` Nikesh Shukla, author of The Good Immigrant A Race Too Far Why I`m No Longer Talking to White People About Race Plan D Where There`s A Will: Hope, Grief and Endurance in a Cycle Race Across a Continent Human Race: 10 Centuries of Change on Earth Mission Moon 3-D: Reliving the Great Space Race Race Training with Jim Saltonstall The Official Tour de France Bike Maintenance Book Unbreakable: The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World`s Most Dangerous Horse Race Empire, Race and the Politics of Anti-Caste Superior: The Return of Race Science The Race to Space: From Sputnik to the Moon Landing and Beyond… Solent Race Strategy G74 The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture Race: Vintage Minis Gordon Bennett and the First Yacht Race Across the Atlantic Race to the Frozen North: The Matthew Henson Story This Island Race Race Training Spix`s Macaw: The Race to Save the World`s Rarest Bird Tunnel 29: Love, Espionage and Betrayal: the True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall Riding in the Zone Rouge: The Tour of the Battlefields 1919 – Cycling`s Toughest-Ever Stage Race RYA Start to Race Etape: The Untold Stories of the Tour de France`s Defining Stages Mountain Kings The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe`s Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth and Power Giro d`Italia: The Story of the World`s Most Beautiful Bike Race The Last Grain Race