In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists did the unthinkable: they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain - and held a picnic.Word had spread of what was going to happen. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German '

Drafted into the East German Army

2 Apr 14th, 2023 49m 25s

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 equip

Working in the nuclear missile compartment of a Cold War Royal Navy Polaris submarine

1 Dec 18th, 2021 47m 31s

John Andrews joined the Royal Navy in 1981 and went on to serve aboard the HMS Repulse, one of the UK’s Polaris nuclear missile submarines from 1982.His role was Missile Compartment Control Patrol which included security of the nuclear missile

Growing up in Cold War East Germany's Valley of the Clueless

Sep 1st, 2023 1h 11m

Henrik was born in the late 1960s near Dresden in East Germany. The area was sarcastically known as the Tal der Ahnungslosen or Valley of the Clueless, as the area generally was not able to receive TV from West Germany from the mid-to-late 1950

Gymnastics and Pills: An East German Childhood

1 28 days ago 1h 37m

Sirka offers a comprehensive exploration of life in East Germany, detailing the experiences of growing up in Neubrandenburg, the influence of the East German state and the Stasi, and the societal impacts of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies leading

Spying on NATO from a Cold War East German Army radio monitoring base Part 1

Oct 6th, 2023 1h 16m

Born in 1968 in East Germany Thomas had a "normal socialist" but happy childhood in a small town near Dresden. His family was viewed as exotic at that time as his mother had Hungarian citizenship which allowed her to travel to West Berlin.He w

Gunfire in the Woods: A foiled escape and imprisonment in Cold War East Germany

Sep 8th, 2023 1h 26m

This is part two of Henrik’s story. You can hear the first part in episode 307. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode307It’s the late 1980s and Henrik and his friends plan to escape from East Germany via Czechoslovakia.Henrik provides a ve

The rise and fall of East German leader Erich Honecker

1 Jul 28th, 2023 1h 8m

Honecker emerged as an ambitious political player and became the shadowy mastermind behind the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, a crucial moment in twentieth-century history.Author Nathan Morley brings to life the story of the longtime

Assembling and delivering nuclear artillery rounds to the Cold War West German Army

1 Jul 14th, 2023 41m 15s

In February 1983 US soldier Manuel Alzager was sent to a mysterious posting to the British Zone in the north of West Germany a long way from the main US forces in southern Germany.After a lengthy journey, he is picked up by a West German priva

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

1 Apr 21st, 2023 57m 25s

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. We start the episode in the Autumn o

Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

Mar 31st, 2023 1h 23m

In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany simply ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the GDR presented a radically different German identity t

A British kid transferred to a Soviet school (283)

Mar 25th, 2023 49m 20s

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 l

A Cold War escape from Czechoslovakia (279)

Feb 25th, 2023 47m 33s

We return to Dirk’s story from episode 278 with a move to East Berlin following his mother’s divorce from his father.Dirk finds school life more relaxed where pupils are allowed to wear Western clothing and to speak more openly, even question

The Bridge of Spies spy (273)

Jan 21st, 2023 1h 23m

On 10 February 1962, Gary Powers, the American pilot whose U2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, was released on “The Bridge in Spies” in Berlin by his captors in exchange for one Colonel Rudolf Abel, aka Vilyam Fisher - one of the mos

Arrested 11 times, plus 3 shooting incidents - a BRIXMIS officer's diary Pt 1 (250)

Aug 26th, 2022 52m 38s

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 an

The girl at the edge of the World - an East German childhood at the West German Border (248)

Aug 12th, 2022 56m 18s

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

British Army Air Corps helicopter co-pilot in Cold War Germany (246)

Jul 29th, 2022 1h 26m

Paul continues his story with his recruitment into the Army Air Corps. It’s initially delayed with a tour providing airfield repair in West Germany and then the Falklands, but finally, he’s at training at Middle Wallop, the home of the Army Air

A boy soldier in the Cold War Royal Engineers (245)

Jul 22nd, 2022 57m 25s

Paul joined the Royal Engineers in 1977, aged 16 as an apprentice. We hear of his experience of joining the army at such a young age and being away from home for the first time.After initial training his first posting was to Osnabruck in 1979

Arrested by the KGB and taken to the Lubyanka prison (237)

1 May 27th, 2022 1h 7m

Marti Peterson was the first female CIA operative to be assigned to Moscow, probably the most challenging posting during the Cold War.Don't miss the previous episode here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode236/This second episode turns

Flying for the CIA's Air America in South East Asia (233)

Apr 29th, 2022 1h 26m

In 1964, pilot Captain Hansen found himself unemployed. He began to send out feelers to several companies including one that had placed an ad in the Washington Post called Air America. When he was called in for an interview which primarily cons

The shooting down of KAL007, the Able Archer exercise and the nuclear war scare of 1983 (229)

1 Apr 1st, 2022 1h 24m

The year 1983 was one of the most dangerous in human history. While the Cuban crisis was exceptionally dangerous and both the United States and the Soviet Union had significant nuclear arsenals in 1962, a war in 1983 would have likely ended the

Cold War British Army fighting tactics in West Germany (221)

1 Feb 12th, 2022 1h 5m

Frank Baldwin was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1979 and served for ten years, rising to the rank of Major. The first battlefield study he planned was in 1989 for HQ 4th Armoured Division. Since then, he has been a guide or historian

British Army "stay behinds" the Special OP Troop (212)

Dec 11th, 2021 1h 19m

I speak with Colin Ferguson a veteran from the British Army‘s covert Special Observation Post Troop which was founded in 1982.The "stay behind" Special OP Troop consisted of selected soldiers in 6 man patrols whose task was to dig in large und

A Cold War childhood in Albania (211)

Dec 3rd, 2021 1h 1m

Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a

Flying into nuclear mushroom clouds (201)

1 Sep 24th, 2021 58m 1s

Squadron Leader John Robinson AFC (ret’d) was an RAF pilot who was tasked to fly into the mushroom clouds of nuclear bomb tests to capture samples at Operation Buffalo at Maralinga in 1956, and Operation Grapple, at Christmas Island in 1957. H