Putin’s view of power was formed watching East Germany collapse
October 6, 2014
Mary Elise Sarotte
The Guardian
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Twenty-five years ago this week tumultuous scenes were unfolding in the East German city of Dresden: inside the central station, tens of thousands of people clashed violently with police, army and Stasi forces. And the chances are high that a 36-year-old KGB officer named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin would have followed the chaos with his own eyes.
The story of what happened in Dresden on 4 October was soon overshadowed by the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall a month later.
