LOS ANGELES, CA.- East German artifacts of art, culture and politics from The Wende Museum, the world's largest Cold War visual archive, will be the subject of a major TASCHEN publication in 2012. The publication will mark The Wende Museum's 10th Anniversary and offer an encyclopedic record of life in East Germany from 1949-1989. The Culver City, California, museum houses more than 60,000 objects from Communist-era Eastern Europe, including furniture and decor, paintings, sculptures, posters, flags and banners, signs, political propaganda, clothing, tapestries, textiles, books, scrapbooks, films, electronics, remnants of Checkpoint Charlie, and the longest stretch of the original Berlin Wall outside of Germany.

"The Wende collection is unparalleled and it is a great pleasure to give the collection the international awareness it deserves," said Benedikt Taschen, the CEO and Founder of TASCHEN, and a member of The Wende's Founder's Circle. Since 1980, TASCHEN has been publishing innovative, groundbreaking books on art and culture, including such titles as Sumo, the $15,000 Helmut Newton retrospective.

The Wende Museum was founded by Justinian Jampol in 2002 with a mission to preserve the cultural artifacts and personal histories of Cold War-era Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. "Evidence of this critical period in world history is quickly disappearing," said Jampol. "In the past 20 years the region has experienced rapid transformation of everything from architecture to the staples of everyday life."

According to Wayne Ratkovich, Chair of The Wende Museum Board, "The book will present more than just an exhaustive documentation of The Wende's collection and the artifacts of the Cold War. It will provide a unique view of life behind the Iron Curtain."