In conversation with 7 BRIXMIS veterans – Part 1

In October of 2022, I was asked by the West Pennines Military Vehicle Trust to moderate a Q&A session with a number of BRIXMIS veterans. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Part 2 is here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode270 Attending were Drivers Neil Walton, Pete Curran,  Dave Collins, and Kev Smith,  plus Sandy Saxton-Warne … Read more

How East Germany doped its athletes

In the early 1970s, the athletes of East Germany started to achieve incredible sports results, winning medals and setting new world records with astonishing frequency. For many years, their sporting supremacy was hailed as a triumph of the socialist government’s commitment to scientific research and innovative training methods. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on … Read more

The building of the Berlin Wall

From the moment East Germany was formed in 1949, many of its citizens chose to leave to start a new life in the West. By the mid-1950s, the trickle had turned into a flood as large numbers rejected Walter Ulbricht’s Communist paradise. His ‘Workers’ & Peasants’ State’ could not afford to lose the skills and … Read more

An 18 year old US Military Policeman in West Berlin

Richard Blevins enlisted aged 18 in the US Army in March of 1987.  He completed  Basic Training  & Military Police School training in July of 1987 and was posted to West Berlin as a United States Military Policeman. He describes his selection for Berlin duty while at Rhine-Main AFB in Frankfurt and his first journey … Read more

A trip across Central Europe on a East German MZ motorbike

  MZ was an East German motorcycle manufacturer located in Zschopau, Saxony. The acronym MZ stands for Motorenwerke Zschopau GmbH (German for Zschopau engine factory). In the 1980s MZ was regarded by the British motorcycle press as producing ugly and old-fashioned (if worthy) motorcycles however, there was a hard-core set of UK fans who loved … Read more

Imprisoned in a Soviet Military gaol – a BRIXMIS officer’s diary Pt 2

This is the 2nd part of my interview with Lt Col. Stephen Harrison, MBE who served for two years as a full-time Touring Officer with BRIXMIS. The tours were hazardous three-man, vehicle-borne patrols collecting intelligence on the Warsaw Pact forces in East Germany for up to five days and nights over a series of four-month … Read more

Life in the forbidden zone at the East/West German border

A young Claudia Bierschenk lived in a village surrounded by hills, valleys and thick forests at the edge of a world called the GDR. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Her great uncle lives in the Forbidden Zone, the area where the East German border is a few metres away … Read more

A Mormon missionary in Cold War East Germany

In the early 1980s East Germany had just 5000 members of the Church of Latter-day Saints, many of which had been members since before World War 2. In 1982 East German leader Erich Honecker historically allowed the church to build a temple in Freiberg and in 1988 Mormon missionaries were allowed into East Germany. Ken … Read more