The award-winning podcast preserving the stories of the Cold War before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
Lt Col. Stephen Harrison, MBE served for two years as a full-time Touring Officer with BRIXMIS. These 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 patrolling periods. They lived in the field and did … Read more
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 young Claudia Bierschenk lived in a village surrounded by hills, valleys and thick forests at the edge of a world called the GDR. It could be beautiful, but the Iron Curtain runs through it, like a tectonic plate separating East and West and Claudia from her West German relatives. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on … Read more
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
Keith Bailey Joined British Army at 16 in 1973. He was recruited into the Blues and Royals, (Household Cavalry) and served in West Germany as a gunner in Chieftain tanks. However, he was keen to serve in the Royal Military Police and particularly 19 (Support) Platoon known as “The White Mice”. Their role was to … Read more
During the 1970s and 1980s, Arthur Grace travelled extensively behind the Iron Curtain, working primarily for news magazines. One of only a small corps of Western photographers with ongoing access, he was able to delve into the most ordinary corners of people’s daily lives, while also covering significant events. His remarkable book Communism(s) A Cold … Read more
In 1982 the East German Ministry for State Security is hunting for creative new weapons in the war against the class enemy – and their solution is stranger than fiction. Rather than guns, tanks, or bombs, the Stasi develop a programme to fight capitalism through rhyme and verse, winning the culture war through poetry – … Read more
You might remember listening to short wave radio during the Cold War and coming across weird transmissions of metallic voices reciting random groups of numbers through the ether. These are number stations, shortwave radio stations characterised by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which were being sent to spies operating in foreign countries. Number stations were used … Read more
When the Cold War split Berlin in half, between East and West, one neighbourhood was trapped in the middle, and became a symbol of Cold War tensions. For more than twenty years, the hamlet of Steinstuecken was caught in a tug-of-war between the Americans, the Soviets and the East Germans. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on … Read more
You will remember Karl-Heinz from our episode 218 where he talked about being a signaller on the West German destroyer “Hamburg” in the late 70s. Today we follow his post navy life as a travelling supporter of football club HSV Hamburg where he followed them all over the Soviet bloc talks about watching them play Dynamo Berlin … Read more