The award-winning podcast preserving the stories of the Cold War before they are lost…subscribe for free. Produced by Ian Sanders FRHistS
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
When the Berlin Wall came down, the files of the East German secret police, the much-dreaded Stasi, were opened and read. And among the shocking stories revealed was that of the Stasi’s infiltration of the Church. The Lutheran Church was the only semi-free space in East Germany, where those who rebelled against the regime … Read more
John Tarver was born into a middle-class family. He joined the British Communist Party on his 18th birthday in 1948 because he felt the Soviet Union had made the most effective resistance to fascism. He worked as a party activist in Britain and made several trips to the GDR where he would get a … Read more
Todd Anton was arrested by the Stasi while on a day trip to East Berlin and gives a raw and powerful account of his arrest, interrogation and eventual release. If you’d like to support us then from the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us cover our increasing costs and … Read more
Today we’re talking to Alison Lewis, a professor in German at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of several books, including one in German about love and gender in literature during Germany’s reunification and a book in German about the Stasi’s infiltration of the literary underground. We spoke to Alison in episode 71. … Read more
Welcome to Episode 12 of Cold War Conversations. Today’s guest is someone I’ve been trying to speak to for some time as his story is a particularly fascinating one. We’re chatting with Mark Reeder a musician and music producer who has been involved in the Berlin and international music scene since 1978, starting as Factory Records … Read more
Welcome you to episode 6 of Cold War Conversations where we talk to about the relatively little known Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. A lot of focus is on the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it can be argued that the Uprising of 1953 sowed the seeds for the eventual demise of the … Read more
<Welcome to Episode 3 of Cold War Conversations where we hear about the strange world of football in East Germany and even if you are not interested in football it’s a fascinating chat. Craig McCracken runs the website, Beyondthelastman.com, described as 20th century football writing and nostalgia in a skilled and cultured groove. One of … Read more
In Episode 7 we welcome award-winning author David Young who has written the Stasi Child – Karin Müller series of crime thrillers set in East Germany in the mid 1970s. The series begins in 1975 with Stasi Child, David’s critically-acclaimed debut which was an official Top Twenty paperback bestseller in The Bookseller, won the CWA … Read more
A series of podcasts chatting to those who lived through and experienced the Cold War first hand and those that are fascinated by the period.