Eyewitness

A KGB trained spy in Cold War South Africa

    South Africa in the 1980s is a brutal, racist Apartheid regime. Those who oppose it risk their lives. Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s Sue Dobson, was a young white South African woman who was also a spy for the … Read more

The last voice you’d hear in a nuclear war

The BBC Wartime Broadcasting Service (WTBS) is a  little-known piece of Cold War history that would have been for many the last human voice they heard after a nuclear attack on the UK. Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Iain started work for the BBC in 1988 and due to … Read more

Cold War Polish People Army Radio Operator conscript

Communist Poland had universal conscription and the armed forces were huge by contemporary standards. The Polish People’s Army, Navy, and Airforce had just over 400,000 troops for most of the 1980s in a country of 36 million. Tom was a conscript in Polish People’s Army from 1987-89. He served as a radio operator in Legnica … Read more

Volker – The Berlin Wall Escape Helper

  It’s 1966 in Berlin and the city has now been divided for 5 years by an almost impenetrable wall erected by the communist German Democratic Republic. West German student Volker Heinz joins a group looking for ways to help would-be fugitives escape from East to West. Their search ends at Checkpoint Charlie, the most … Read more

Cold War Canadian airborne anti-submarine missions

    Colonel Terry Chester’s flying career spanned some 42 years, and 10,000 flying hours. He joined the RCAF in Sept 1964 and in 1968 was awarded Navigator Wings. Terry flew for 3,000 hrs on the Argus Maritime patrol aircraft where he spent a good portion of his RCAF career hunting for Soviet Submarines in both … Read more

Discovering your husband is a KGB spy

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! The second part of Svetlana’s story starts shortly after her arrival in West Germany with her husband Oleg who is the Chief Editor of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty a CIA-financed station beaming Western propaganda into the Soviet Union. To Svetlana’s horror, Oleg … Read more

From Soviet Latvia to the BBC Russian Service

  Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Svetlana came from a dissident Jewish family opposed to Soviet rule in Latvia. Her parents survived World War 2, but during the Stalin era two members of her family were held in the Gulags. The family never resigned themselves to Latvia’s occupation by … Read more

Transferring from the East German Army (NVA) to the unified German Army (Bundeswehr)

  Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! We continue Steffen’s story where he tells of serving in three armies – firstly, the NVA, secondly the East German Army between the first free elections and unification, and finally the unified Bundeswehr. Listen to his previous episode here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode286/ We start the … Read more

Drafted into the East German Army

  Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google PodcastsBecome a Patron! Steffen was born in Karl Marx Stadt and was conscripted into the NVA (East German Army) in 1988. When he left school he started an apprenticeship in electronics learning how to build radio receivers at REMA, a then-famous producer of HiFi equipment. Steffen … Read more

A British kid transferred to a Soviet school

wwListen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts   Richard was 6 years old when he was uprooted from a school in the United States to a Soviet school 700 miles East of Moscow. In 1988 the Soviet Union was opening up following Michael Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika and American firms began looking at … Read more