In conversation with those that experienced the Cold War and those who are fascinated
Werner Stiller’s spectacular defection to the West in 1979 inflicted one of the Cold War’s most serious blows to the Stasi. At the time he was working as a case officer for the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, the Stasi’s foreign intelligence division, where he was in charge of scientific espionage in the West. We speak … Read more My father was a Stasi spy…
Hans de Vreij is a Dutch journalist who has worked in Berlin , Brussels, Geneva and Prague. Whilst working at the United Nations in Geneva Hans was the subject of attempted recruitment by the KGB to develop an ‘agent of influence’ to disseminate Soviet points of view. In addition, they analysed the ‘targeted journalist’ in … Read more The KGB tried to recruit me
How can we go beyond the films, books, and photos to learn more about the Cold War? Films are certainly evocative and certainly inform but how can we go beyond that and immerse ourselves to see what it felt like to be there. The two technologies of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality may allow … Read more Experiencing the Cold War via virtual reality
Susan Morrison is Professor of English at Texas State University. In the late 1980’s she taught in Rostock in the former GDR and then lived in West Berlin but frequently crossed back into the East to teach and meet friends. In this episode we talk to her about her experiences and her impression of … Read more An American teaching English in East Germany
Iain MacGregor is the author of Checkpoint Charlie subtitled The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the most dangerous place on Earth. Weaving together personal testimonies, this book is described as a gripping narrative with vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West … Read more Paperback book giveaway – Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the most dangerous place on Earth
Mark Brayne worked as a Reuters & BBC journalist during the Cold War. This time we are in Romania in December 1989 where riots, street violence and murder in several cities over the course of roughly a week led the Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu to flee the capital city on 22 December … Read more Reporting the 1989 Romanian Revolution
In this episode we talk to Mark Brayne again in a wide ranging chat about his career as a Reuters & BBC journalist including details of his Stasi file, his time in the Soviet Union, Hungary & Poland as well as the perils of editing analogue tape in a non-digital age. Among … Read more A British Journalist under Stasi Surveillance
Bill was a US Army Intelligence Analyst. In 1986 he was assigned to Order of Battle Branch, Soviet Section where for three years he studied the Warsaw Pact armies working closely with the US Military Liaison Mission in Berlin which led to a transfer there in November 1989 Stationed in Potsdam he became an … Read more US Army Intelligence Analyst
James Stejskal served for 23 years with US Special Forces, including two tours in Berlin. Special Forces Berlin was a small detachment of 100 highly trained soldiers who, should hostilities break out, were to wreak havoc behind Warsaw Pact lines. The US government only acknowledged its existence in 2014 and James has written an … Read more Special Forces Berlin – Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956-1990
Mark Brayne studied in Moscow 71-72, travelling the country with fellow UK students and spending silly amounts of time in the bathhouses with salted fish and very poor quality beer. He returned in 1974-75 as Reuters trainee journalist where he became very close to Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb … Read more A UK Journalist in the Soviet Union & the GDR