Cold War Conversations Podcast

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just thought I would flag this up. They have a lot of very interesting content, including an interview with an Infantryman who protected a Pershing 2 Battery, and there is a podcast somewhere on East German Television. Worth taking a look.

https://coldwarconversations.com/

[Stuart Galbraith]

This one might be of particular interest to Tanknetters, account by an M60A1 tank crewman on the IGB in the late 1970's.

https://coldwarconversations.com/episode41/

[Stuart Galbraith]

Really good episode on the underground Music Scene in East Berlin. The interviewee is Mark Reeder, behind factory records in the UK, and he describes how he once smuggled out a complete East German Army uniform by wearing it through the border under a pinstripe suit.

 

https://coldwarconversations.com/episode12/

 

The program Reeder describes is actually on youtube, including the music video filmed on Paul Glienicke bridge.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[DKTanker]

This one might be of particular interest to Tanknetters, account by an M60A1 tank crewman on the IGB in the late 1970's.

https://coldwarconversations.com/episode41/

I only listened to the first few minutes, turned it off when he started talking about taking tanks within the 1K zone and seeing Soviet (DDR) tanks looking back. Total bullshit. WP forces in greater than platoon strength in the border area was spot reported through the chain of command as a Frag Rep Larum Bell. That was USAREUR level serious shit. Second, no US or US civilians were allowed within the 1K zone until they had received briefings and were escorted by border qualified personnel. A battalion of tanks didn't just drive up to the border one foggy night, much less do it without telling anybody where you were going.

He might have mentioned later or I missed it in his opening crappalogue, but Brigade 76 was a 4th Infantry Division brigade out of Ft. Carson, Colorado.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, I have to admit I was twitching through that as well. After the 1973 war, I cant think of any major alerts that would have happened until the 1980's. I also cant think of any occasions when US Tanks and Russian tanks have stood barrel to barrel, other than in the Berlin Brigade in 1961. Why Ford would feel the need to send brand new units to the border just doesnt add up. But I appreciate you pointing that out, I thought I was being unfair.

 

The one on the guy on the Pershing 2 Battery I found more interesting.

[Adam_S]

I guess this is as good a place for this as any. Skip through the first few minutes of stuff about lifting weights if it's not your thing. The dude being interviewed is a bit like a real life Major Kong.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thanks for that Adam, Ill be sure to listen to that.

 

Just been listening to another podcast, this one on Brixmis and the Defence of Berlin from the Perspective of a Chieftain Commander is very good. He also describes his conversations with Rudolf Hess.

https://coldwarconversations.com/episode21/

Edited September 16, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[alejandro_]

Thanks Stuart, some of the podcasts sound very interesting. I will start watching them tomorrow.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Hope you find them interesting Alejandro. If it makes it any easier, all of these are available on spotify which im currently listening to them on.

 

This is another series of postcasts, the Cold War vault. The narrator in the first episode describes himself as haunted by the cold war, and for various reason's I can entirely relate to what he is saying.

 

Anyway, Episode 14 Ive found genuinely thought provoking. He describes a movie from a Ukrainian film maker that describes a fairly nonsensical theory that Chernobyl was engineered by a Soviet scientist to cover up the failure of the Duga Radar project. But the film sounds really interesting despite this,, and the podcast uses the context of Chernobyl and the Duga Radar project to highlight the evolving relationship between Ukraine, and how the Soviet Union has in some respects not died at all. Certainly in mindset.

 

Anyway, enough of my description, well worth a listen.

https://www.coldwarvault.com/blog/2019/4/22/ep14-chernobyl-and-the-russian-woodpecker

 

Actually looking it up, the movie looks like its worth a punt as well.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[HBoersma]

Thanks for this Stuart!

[Stuart Galbraith]

No problem Hans.

 

I may actually have found a few more, Ill up them tomorrow.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Radio GDR, a podcast all about life in the former GDR. Ive not listened to this much but it seems to be more about life as it was lived there, less about the stasi and communism.

 

https://radiogdr.com/category/podcast/

 

Spycast, from the Spy museum. Again, not listened to a huge amount on here, but it looks like some interesting interviews both of the cold war and contemporary issues.

https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/how-to-listen/

[Stuart Galbraith]

Really great interview with an eyewitness to the August 1991 coup.

 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/167223/1563538

 

It includes some truly awesome photographs.

https://medium.com/@KDWilliams7/moscow-august-1991-c6d62f554a95

 

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[HBoersma]

& thanks once more Stuart. I became somewhat fascinated with the DDR (a combination of attraction and repulsion) via the Cold War links between the Netherlands and the DDR (war plans, intelligence, peace movements), so this is welcome.

 

Open Memory Box, which the Radio GDR podcast reports on, is a website with great potential and already some impressive items. Unfortunately the collection of 8 mm amateur films is in low resolution and has somewhat obstructing titles, but I greatly enjoyed the edits under "anti-archiv" which have a hypnotising quality, partly thanks to the dreamlike soundtrack ("ton"). High resolution footage can be found under "Geschichte" which contains some well made short films showing how the personal and the political were intertwined. See for example "Wir wurden belogen".

[Stuart Galbraith]

You probably have already seen it, but there is an excellent piece of footage taken from a Brixmis vehicle of a trip into the DDR over the Glienicke Bridge.

 

Yeah, that memory box site looks a great resource. Im currently reading Max Hertberg's 'Reim' novels, and I can see what a great job he did of summoning up the atmosphere of the DDR.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ive mentioned this one elsewhere, but its worth repeating. The Fighter Pilot podcast is largely based around naval aviation, but it does touch on various land based aircraft such as the F5 and the Tornado. It does mainly contemporary aircraft, but it touches on a lot of cold war aircraft. I seem to recall the one on the A4, the A6, the Phantom and the SR71 are all well worth listening to.

https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/

[Stuart Galbraith]

This one is particularly good, discusses the USN's maritime doctrine for the 1980's, and the reason for the 600 ship navy.

http://ciftc.libsyn.com/ciftc-2

 

This is also pretty good, on the 1973 war and the martime standoff between the 6th Fleet and the 5th Eskadra.

http://ciftc.libsyn.com/ciftc-draft

[Stuart Galbraith]

Been listening to some of the Nixon Now podcasts on Spotify. Some of these are really very good, particularly the ones touching on the Vietnam war, and Nixons role as a roving ambassador post Watergate.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/nixon-now-podcast/id1071275540

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ok, now this is one that anyone interested in the Cold war ought to listen to. operation Gladio and the European stay behind networks. This was FAR more extensive than I thought, including even neutral countries like Sweden, Finland and Austria.

https://www.coldwarvault.com/blog/2019/9/25/ep23-operation-gladio

[HBoersma]

Thanks again. I didn't know about the neutral countries' stay-behind organisations (SBO) either, especially not about their links with the CIA. I recently wrote an extensive note on the "I" or intelligence branch of the Dutch SBO: see here: Part I, note g. More backgrounds and details about equipment: cryptomuseum.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thanks very much for that Hans.

 

There is a lot here I didnt know, for example the idea that it had a counter subversion role was entirely new to me. I guess that pretty much came to pass in Italy as we saw.

 

As its Berlin Wall day, its worth flagging up this podcast on Cold War Conversations about Checkpoint Charlie. The bit about the Commander British Forces Berlin giving protection to the Soviets soldiers is strangely moving.

https://coldwarconversations.com/

[HBoersma]

I did not pick up on the counter-subversion rol; was that in the podcast?

 

There was no counter-subversive role for O&I (as far as we know, one should always add in matters like these), but it seems unlikely given what is now known. But in Italy and Belgium, and to some extent in West Germany I believe, there were and are suspicions that their SBO's were linked to far-right terrorism (taking "anti-subversive" to a whole new level). This is how Gladio, being the first SBO to be uncloaked, gave the whole of the SBO concept a bad name — and in some cases rightly so, it seems.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I did not pick up on the counter-subversion rol; was that in the podcast?

 

There was no counter-subversive role for O&I (as far as we know, one should always add in matters like these), but it seems unlikely given what is now known. But in Italy and Belgium, and to some extent in West Germany I believe, there were and are suspicions that their SBO's were linked to far-right terrorism (taking "anti-subversive" to a whole new level). This is how Gladio, being the first SBO to be uncloaked, gave the whole of the SBO concept a bad name — and in some cases rightly so, it seems.

Sorry Hans, I didnt notice this at the time.

 

Yeah, it refers to the CIA undertaking the original brief for stay behind parties as not only for fighting against invasions, but also had in mind countering a Czechoslovak style subversion campaign. Ive no idea how much stock they put on that post the take over of the organizations by NATO, but clearly there does seem to have been a use to that end in italy. Its been a while since I listened to it, but im sure its in there, I think its early on where they are talking about the CIA.

 

Here is an interesting one, our own Ken Katz talks with the fighter pilot podcast on the B52 bomber.

 

https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/bombermonth/#b-52

 

Sorry Ken, I had absolutely no idea how highly qualified you are.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

Been listening to this the last couple of days. It's the case of Isdal woman, a woman who died in a fire on a Bergen hillside in 1970, and still remains unidentified. There is a lingering suspicion she may have been a spy, because she had some items in a code or shorthand in her luggage. And she seemed to take an interest in the Penguin missile tests, and German and Norwegian naval officers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p060ms2h/episodes/downloads

 

Well worth a listen, even if you don't like true crime stories.

[Chris Werb]

Brilliant find Stuart. I'm going to have to ration myself to one programme a day though. I've also forwarded the link to my brother, who got to do some interesting things in the Cold War.