In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organised a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic—it was located on the dangerous militarised frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German “vacationers” packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents.

The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union—the so-called end of history—all would flow from those dramatic hours. Drawing on exclusive interviews, Matthew Longo gives an invaluable account of historical change, and the disillusionment that followed, as emotionally powerful as it is revealing.