The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

John le Carré published The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1963, only two years after the Berlin Wall divided Germany’s capital city in half. The building of the wall marked the climax of a crisis that had been simmering since the end of World War II (WWII). Following the collapse of the Nazi regime in the spring of 1945, the victorious Allied powers divided the whole of Germany into four occupation zones, under the respective control of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. They likewise divided Berlin into four zones, although the city itself was entirely within the Soviet zone. Berlin accordingly became a focal point of the conflict between the Soviets and the West known as the Cold War. The Soviets had suffered inconceivable losses during WWII, and they responded with a brutal and extractive occupation policy in their section of Germany. The West feared that an overly weak Germany would make the Soviets the dominant power on the continent. The Soviets in turn feared that the atomic bomb would encourage the West to move against the Soviets while they were still recovering from the war, as the US had been building a ring of air bases within striking distance of Soviet cities and factories.