A collection of documents about the short-lived uprising demonstrate that it was more than a ploy orchestrated by West Germany and the radio station RIAS, but was a response to the issue of work norms for increased time and output and a result of a new Communist regime uncertain of its place.

This volume is the second in the series Cold War Documentary Readers, a project of the US National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project.

The volume is the first documented account of this early Cold War crisis from both sides of the Iron Curtain. Based on the recent unprecedented access to the once-closed archives of several member states of the Warsaw Pact, this collection of primary-source documents presents one of the most notorious events of post-war European history in a highly readable format.

Previously unreleased Kremlin records, once highly classified American documents, materials from the Soviet Foreign Ministry, and transcripts of internal East German Communist Party Politburo meetings in the days leading to the uprising in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) are among the highlights of this sensational documentary.

In this volume, as in the previous one in the series, each part is preceded by a detailed introductory essay to provide the necessary historical and political context. The individual documents are introduced by short headnotes summarizing the contents and orienting the reader. A chronology, glossary and bibliography offer further background information.