The award-winning podcast preserving the stories of the Cold War before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on SpotifyListen on Google Podcasts Major General Sir Robert Corbett, KCVO, CB was the last Commandant of the British Sector in Berlin. We start his story with the description of his first experience of Berlin as a young Army captain commanding a military train across East Germany into West Berlin just … Read more
This is the first of two episodes we have following Don Snedeker’s experiences through the Cold War. In this episode, we hear about his time in Vietnam and the book he has written entitled “The Blackhorse in Vietnam: The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam and Cambodia, 1966–1972”. Don was born in Brooklyn New York but … Read more
We speak with Chris Summers who as a 22 year old was sent by his employers to East Germany in a Ford Escort to install British factory machinery. He provides us with interesting insights into life in the provinces of the GDR. Long term listeners of the podcast will recognise one of Chris’s colleagues was … Read more
Born in Communist Czechoslovakia, Eva Caletkova has written an honest and unflinching account of her childhood in Bratislava. Eva’s parents were Catholics, and the communist regime began to persecute the Catholic Church right from the start in 1948. They had to hide their faith from anyone outside of their home. Eva provides us with an … Read more
Robert Perschmann describes himself as an anti-Cold War activist. His political views started to form while serving in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War period where he saw first hand the toll on the US military and the racism prevalent in the American South. An interview with a Soviet journalist which was broadcast … Read more
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
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
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 the … Read more
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 with … Read more
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 his … Read more