Rear Admiral G. Hesse and the Secret Rubric for Baltic Readiness
Kept secret for decades, a 1979 memorandum shows the CIA infiltrating the Warsaw Pact's inner circle to map the combat readiness of the East German navy.
By Constance Bell ·
East Germany
Anatoly Dobrynin and the Absurdity of the GDR Nuclear Secret
Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin claimed Moscow was not disseminating nuclear weapons while a defector provided proof of the opposite, a contradiction kept Secret for decades.
By Roy Castellano ·
Burchinal and the Nuclear Ledger for East German Bridges
Kept secret as an excised copy, the record shows military planners treating the nuclear destruction of East German cities as a budgetary procurement exercise.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Steel Mats in Bautzen and the Blueprint for Regime Change
An anonymous source, embedded within the surveillance apparatus of East Germany, risked everything to catalog the technical readiness of Litten airfield before the agency pivoted to political action.
By Desmond Okafor ·
Kennedy feared a 'citizen explosion' in East Berlin
Top Secret orders from 1961 show a president bracing for riots and rebellion on the Berlin border, a scenario kept hidden for decades from the people who would have fought it.
By Roy Castellano ·
Million East Germans Rise as US 7th Army Stands on Alert
Over a million East Germans were curbed by Soviet forces during a brief window when the US 7th Army and NATO headquarters stood on alert to prevent a global catastrophe.
By Roy Castellano ·
Pyongyang Spurns Moscow After Soviets Deny Modern Missiles
North Korea armed its general population without military need and called the Berlin Wall a half-hearted measure as it abandoned Soviet assurances for Chinese positions.
By Vera Kessler ·
447,000 Flee East Germany, Forcing Malenkov to Soften Police State
Workers, peasants, and police vanished across the border in a mass haemorrhage that left 500,000 hectares abandoned and the state unable to feed its people.
By Marcus Boone ·
84 killed or wounded as Soviet army deploys 600 tanks to crush GDR
84 people were killed or wounded and 700 arrested as Soviet divisions occupied East German cities to stop what Moscow called a foreign operation by fascist-like elements.
By Roy Castellano ·
600 Japanese citizens used China to slip into North Korea
India feared US reprisals while 600 Japanese citizens lied on visa forms to enter Pyongyang, hiding trade ties and using China as a buffer to bypass Western containment.
By Roy Castellano ·
Siegfried Bock treated human rights as currency for postwar borders
Divided families seeking reunions and legal marriages were treated as currency by East German officials to secure Western acceptance of the socialist status quo.
By Marcus Boone ·
Kim Il Sung erased Soviet liberators to justify leadership cult
North Korea's claim to have won its own liberation was branded a fraud by East German analysts who feared a growing personality cult was betraying socialist unity.
By Marcus Boone ·