Cold War research The Cold War The Cold

Cold War research

The Cold War • The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others). Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine, a U. S. foreign policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet Expansionsim. Its main combatants were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. US USSR East Germany West Germany NATO United Kingdom •

The Stasi • • The Ministry for State Security Service was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have ever existed. One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of decomposition.

The Berlin Wall • • A guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East German and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, (fakir beds) and other defences. View of the Berlin Wall from the West side.

Communism • • Communism is the philosophical, social, political and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money and the state. Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchisism (anarchist communism) and the political ideologies grouped around both.

The Iron Curtain • • The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. The term was first used in the British House of Commons by Churchill on 16 August 1945 when he stated "it is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain“.

Life in East Germany • • Life in east Germany was very different to that of the life in the west. Travel in East Germany had to be organised through the Berolina travel agency in London, paying in pounds for vouchers for accommodation to be exchanged at certain specified hotels where Westerners could stay. Petrol could only be bought at a number of designated service stations. It was always interesting to slow down when approaching restricted areas. I often wondered where the ruling elite went after a gruelling day in the ministries, trying to think of what they could do next to ensure the regime held up. Ten years earlier, in 1979, regime-opponent petty officer Bodo Strehlow was on board an East German patrol boat on the Baltic looking out for people attempting to flee to the West by sea.

Life under Communism (Eastern Germany, 1980 s)