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    Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany
    Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany
    Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany
    Ebook126 pages43 minutes

    Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany

    By Marques Vickers

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    About this ebook

    Author and Photographer Marques Vickers examines a propaganda story introduced by Russian President Vladimir Putin crediting himself with single-handedly defusing a hostile East German crowd intent on ransacking the Dresden KGB offices in 1989.

    This edition recounts the narrative, first related in Putin’s published memoirs “First Person” (2000) and later embellished in a 2009 broadcast via a Russian national television documentary.

    Between 1985 and 1990, Putin was stationed as a KGB officer in Dresden, Germany, the third largest city of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He was officially titled as a consular officer, but most scrutinizing Western observers have concurred that his energies were directed towards recruiting spies and siphoning out information regarding West German high technology industries.

    Other media sources have conjectured that he commanded an investigative team with the East German Stasi police that investigated political crime within the GDR. On the evening of December 5, 1989, a large crowd (speculated at 15,000 people) reportedly surrounded the Dresden Stasi prison. They then entered the facility overwhelming the outnumbered guards. The compound was located across the road from Putin’s KGB bureau. The event occurred one month following the fall of the Berlin Wall. That same evening, Putin elaborated that a faction of the crowd descended upon the KGB offices. In First Person, Putin elaborated that he verbally confronted and defused the crowd’s hostile intentions by persuasion. Their intention was to ransacking the KGB compound.

    In a 2009 Russian television documentary, a modified version indicated that he brandished a pistol and threatened to shoot anyone trespassing into the facility. The documentary account accentuated the menacing conditions and heightened Putin’s heroics. The size of crowd has never been determined. The incident was not published at the time either. Two cited crowd participants confirmed the story over twenty years later, but their credibility has never been publicly authenticated.Russian media has integrated this encounter prominently into their character construction of Vladimir Putin.

    Did the incident actually occur? There are significant reasons for doubt.Putin’s tenure in Dresden and intimate view of the GDR’s collapse has been acknowledged as an influential contributing factor to his hard-line and aggressive foreign policy. His conclusions regarding the momentum of change a unified crowd can provoke has prompted his own tight internal controls within Russia.

    The 102-page book features over 100 photographs of the Dresden KGB bureau, Stasi prison facility including a decrepit Russian interrogation wing, the former nearby residence of the Putin family, and renovated core of Dresden’s center city.

    Vickers addresses the background, evolution and reconstruction of Dresden since the Russian Cold War occupation between 1945-1989. The author visited Dresden during the summer of 1990 when the city’s once esteemed monuments and architecture languished in neglect and decay under the Soviet Occupation. The contemporary city center no longer resembles the wreckage that Putin once knew during his residence.German reunification has completely upgraded and polished Dresden to aesthetic preeminence.

    The city was formerly known as the Florence on the River Elbe and the jewel of Prussian Empire aesthetics. Dresden stunning Baroque architecture has been rescued due to German taxation subsidies intended towards eastern rehabilitation.

    Vickers, in his research was unable to confirm or adequately contest Putin’s account of 1989 events. Understanding Putin’s Dresden experience, however, has proven an excellent window into the thinking process of one of the world’s most complex and perplexing national leaders.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarques Vickers
    Release dateAug 4, 2020
    ISBN9781005624583
    Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany
    Author

    Marques Vickers

    Visual Artist, Writer and Photographer Marques Vickers is a California native presently living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington regions. He was born in 1957 and raised in Vallejo, California. He is a 1979 Business Administration graduate from Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. Following graduation, he became the Public Relations and ultimately Executive Director of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce between 1979-84. He subsequently became the Vice President of Sales for AsTRA Tours and Travel in Westwood between 1984-86. Following a one-year residence in Dijon, France where he studied at the University of Bourgogne, he began Marquis Enterprises in 1987. His company operations have included sports apparel exporting, travel and tour operations, wine brokering, publishing, rare book and collectibles reselling. He has established numerous e-commerce, barter exchange and art websites including MarquesV.com, ArtsInAmerica.com, InsiderSeriesBooks.com, DiscountVintages.com and WineScalper.com. Between 2005-2009, he relocated to the Languedoc region of southern France. He concentrated on his painting and sculptural work while restoring two 19th century stone village residences. His figurative painting, photography and sculptural works have been sold and exhibited internationally since 1986. He re-established his Pacific Coast residence in 2009 and has focused his creative productivity on writing and photography. His published works span a diverse variety of subjects including true crime, international travel, California wines, architecture, history, Southern France, Pacific Coast attractions, fiction, auctions, fine art marketing, poetry, fiction and photojournalism. He has two daughters, Charline and Caroline who presently reside in Europe.

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      Book preview

      Vladimir Putin’s Time in Dresden, Germany - Marques Vickers

      VLADIMIR PUTIN’S TIME IN DRESDEN GERMANY

      Published by Marques Vickers at Smashwords

      Copyright 2020 Marques Vickers

      MARQUIS PUBLISHING

      HERRON ISLAND, WASHINGTON

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Vladimir Putin and Dresden Germany: The Genesis of Myth Making

      Images of Putin’s Residence, KGB Office, Soviet Prison and Stasi Remand Prison

      My Own Dresden Experience

      Images of Dresden, Germany

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Preface

      Manipulated historical accounts have a long precedent with the self-serving. No matter how meticulously crafted the narrative, the truth usually surfaces.

      If Putin’s story indeed occurred, there are numerous eyewitnesses to confirm its accuracy. If it was simply propaganda motivated, the falsehood will fade into obscurity.

      Vladimir Putin’s Dresden experience impacted his perception on the capriciousness of power.

      Is global security and stability the benefactor?

      Vladimir Putin and Dresden Germany: The Genesis of Myth Making

      The Diplomatic Formation of Vladimir Putin

      Between 1985 and 1990, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was stationed as a KGB officer in Dresden, Germany, the third largest city of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). After ten years of KGB service within Russia, this position was his initial overseas assignment.

      Dresden has been portrayed as a backwater Soviet Union post by scrutinizing media outlets. Conversely, other sources have elevated the assignment to important strategic prominence. Elite Soviet officers, then as now, were typically stationed in larger and more renowned locations such as Berlin, London, New York and Paris.

      During his tenure, Putin was officially titled as a consular officer. Over the course of his five-year stint, his professional stature rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. This promotion seemed an impressive advancement in spite of the debatable importance of the assignment.

      Most news commentaries have suggested that Putin devoted the majority of his working hours to completing bureaucratic paperwork and field reports that were forwarded to KGB Moscow headquarters. There has been significant speculation that a primary focus for his energies was oriented towards recruiting spies and siphoning out information regarding West German high technology industries. It has been likewise conjectured that he commanded an investigative team from a notorious sector of the East German (Stasi) police that investigated political crime within the GDR.

      Such activities would have made him intimately familiar with the Ministry

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