Berlin's location within the Soviet sphere of influence, the Western allies naively anticipated unfettered access to the city. This hope was abruptly dashed in June 1948 when the Soviets boldly initiated a blockade, sealing off all land and water routes through their territory in a bid to push the Western powers out of Berlin. In a spirited counteraction, the West orchestrated a massive airlift, delivering essentials to sustain West Berlin's residents. The Soviets eventually relented, lifting their blockade in May 1949, though the airlift persisted until September.

Emergence of Two Germanys

Meanwhile, the closing months of 1948 witnessed East and West Berlin forging separate administrations, cementing the city's division. By 1949, the trio of Western-occupied zones coalesced into West Germany, while the Soviet zone emerged as East Germany, setting their capitals in Bonn and Berlin, respectively.

The Berlin Wall

Throughout the 1950s, travel between the two Germanys was largely unhindered until a surge of East Germans began fleeing to the West to escape their regime's oppressive grip. In response, August 1961 saw East German authorities erect a formidable wall of concrete and barbed wire, a stark barrier designed to stem the tide of escape. Yet, over the ensuing years, desperate East Germans, undeterred, faced grave danger, often falling to border guards' bullets during their daring endeavors. It wasn't until the monumental year of 1989 that the Berlin Wall finally opened, allowing free passage.

Intrigue and Espionage

Deighton delves into the complex web of responses between the peoples of East and West Germany. His intrigue lies particularly in spotlighting the clandestine maneuvers of various intelligence outfits — the British Secret Service, the West German Gehlen organization, the American CIA, and the Soviet KGB — as they navigated their shadowy interactions. The tale's central figure is the same enigmatic operative introduced in The Ipcress File, still wrestling with his working-class roots, yet ever adept with cutting wit, and remaining astute, resilient, and incorruptible.

Influences on Modern Fiction

While contemporary fictional narratives may draw heavily from the shadows of their literary predecessors, echoing styles or rebelling against them, they are equally shaped by the tumultuous tides of history—political upheavals, economic shifts, and societal transformations. Fear, in particular, tends to leave an indelible mark. The stunning triumph of Japan over China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 sent ripples of anxiety across Europe. It was Germany, under the eye of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his "Neue Kurs" ("New Course"), that felt these tremors acutely. The Kaiser envisioned the ascendancy of what he ominously dubbed "die gelbe Gefahr" ("the Yellow Peril"), a vision of the vast populations of Asia—Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, and Koreans—marching under Japanese command to conquer Christian Europe. This chilling specter became the central theme of the thriller The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) by British author Sax Rohmer, also known as Arthur C. Wade, setting the stage for twelve more tales in the Fu-Manchu saga.

The Birth of the Invasion Thriller

Yet, it was another British writer, William Le Queux, who fathered the invasion thriller genre. He first envisioned a Franco-Russian assault on Britain in his works The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and The Invasion of 1910, complete with a detailed account of London's siege (1906). The swift Japanese victory over Russia in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War shifted his focus solely to Germany as the looming menace against England. This led to his creation of The Great War (1908), a chilling prophecy of World War I, and Spies of the Kaiser: Plotting the Downfall of England (1909). Meanwhile, Erskine Childers unveiled a German invasion scheme in his novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903). During the Great War, John Buchan released The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), a gripping spy thriller unraveling a German espionage network within England.

The Evolution of the Spy Story

As the dust settled after World War I, the vital roles of espionage and counter-espionage came into sharp relief for the general populace. Yet, despite efforts by literary figures like Oppenheim, Somerset Maugham, Ambler, and Graham Greene, the spy story made scant strides in sophistication. It wasn't until Ian Fleming introduced the flamboyant James Bond in Casino Royale (1953) that the genre captured readers' imaginations with fervor. Fleming offered a lens into Soviet infiltration of British intelligence, with his character Vesper Lynd serving as a veiled depiction of Harold "Kim" Philby. Despite its realistic underpinnings, Casino Royale remains a tale laced with romance, teetering on myth. Later, Fleming's From Russia, with Love (1957) would starkly depict Great Britain as a "toothless tiger" on the world stage, a former power fading into insignificance.

Postwar Spy Fiction: A New Era

The postwar literary landscape saw the emergence of spy authors like Len Deighton (b. 1929) and John le Carre (b. David Cornwell, 1931), who penned their works with a palpable sense of disillusionment and skepticism. They seethed with resentment at the betrayal orchestrated by "gentlemen Communists" from Trinity College, Cambridge, abetted by a British government that chose to conceal their treacheries. Thus, Deighton and le Carre's novels marked a departure from the regal romanticism of Oppenheim, the naiveté of Ambler, Greene's moral musings, and the adventurous spirit of Fleming. However, their cynicism diverged sharply: Deighton's was rooted in a Greek-like belief in distrust tempered by independence, self-discipline, and unwavering loyalty. Conversely, le Carre's was distinctly postmodern, characterized by skepticism, a penchant for fault-finding, and a belief in a near-anarchic freedom.

Funeral in Berlin unveils the gripping tale of the enigmatic British agent introduced in The Ipcress File. This elusive character continues to navigate the shadowy world of espionage in a trilogy of subsequent novels: the submerged intrigue of Horse Under Water (1963), the cerebral thriller The Billion Dollar Brain (1966), and the high-stakes drama of An Expensive Place to Die (1967).

Exploring Berlin Through Deighton's Lens

Deighton's literary journey through Berlin extends beyond Funeral in Berlin with two other compelling works. Berlin Game (1983) inaugurates a thrilling trilogy, spotlighting the resourceful agent Bernie Sampson as he maneuvers through the perilous corridors of Cold War espionage. Meanwhile, Winter: A Novel of a Berlin Family (1987) delves into a profound historical exploration, tracing the fortunes and tribulations of a privileged upper-middle-class family during the tumultuous years from 1920 to 1940.