Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany
by Victor Grossman
Category: History

What could impel a privileged 24-year-old American serving in the US Army in Germany in 1952 to swim across the Danube River to what was then referred to as the Soviet Zone? Why did he decide to forsake the land of his birth and build a new life in the young German Democratic Republic? These are the questions at the core of this memoir by Victor Grossman who was born Stephen Wechsler but changed his name after defecting to the GDR.