The award-winning #podcast preserving the stories of the #ColdWar before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
László Nagy was one of the early members of the Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1987. The HDF became Hungary’s largest political party following first free elections in 1990. In this episode we hear the story of his parent’s life in 1950’s Hungary and László’s early life including how he ended up at school … Read more
In this episode we hear the third and final part of Torsten Belger’s story as he tells us about his first visit to West Berlin, leaving the East German Army and life after the GDR. Before we start a quick thanks to Skjip1969, Peteyinmontreal & GDR Objectified for leaving reviews in Itunes. Do … Read more
Today I speak to 98 year old Gail Halvorsen aka “The Candy Bomber” who flew in the Berlin Airlift in 1948. The Soviets had started a 11-month land blockade against West Berlin. The blockade was broken by a massive U.S.-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin. Gail tells an incredible story of an iconic … Read more
Nick Anderson is a former RAF Phantom jet fighter pilot. In this episode we welcome back Nick as his story continues with his accounts of how the Soviet aircrew tried to distract RAF plane and how he was almost downed by the Soviet tactics. The episode ends with Nick telling us about the final days … Read more
Gillian Cox visited Poland in October 1989. In this episode you will hear her eyewitness of account of a country undergoing fundamental change. The free trade union Solidarity has just won it’s first election, although at this point it has to power share with the communist party. The writing is on the wall for major … Read more
In this episode we speak to John Green. John Green grew up in Coventry. After abandoning a zoology degree course after his second year at Bristol University, he switched to Drama. In 1964 he made the adventurous move to the German Democratic Republic to study film at the National Film School in Babelsberg, near … Read more
In this episode we welcome back Torsten Belger a former East German Army Officer. Torsten was part of the 40th Anniversary Parade of the GDR which unknown to him at the time would be its last. He tells of the training for the parade and his meeting with Yasser Arafat, the Head of … Read more
Nick Anderson is a former RAF Phantom jet fighter pilot. We discuss flying in the Cold War and in detail how the RAF would have responded to a nuclear attack. We also talk about how QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) worked and hear details of a number of missions Nick flew intercepting the Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 codenamed … Read more
Gillian Cox visited the GDR as a student in October 1989 just before the Wall came down. In this episode you will hear her eyewitness of account of what she saw in East Germany on the cusp of it’s destruction. Before we start the episode I wanted to thanks everyone who is supporting the podcast … Read more