Who remembers the Cold War in Europe? (life, people, living)

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

Do you, for example, remember the demonstrations in West Germany in the 1980s against the deployment of Pershing II nuclear missiles? Or other anti-nuclear bomb demonstrations in other European nations?

[Ottawa2011]

i remember the American girl, Samantha Smith, who wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov. He replied and invited her to visit him in Moscow. I had to look up her name online.

I remember the 1980s quite well. I remember seeing a British film from the 1980s, about a young woman from a working class background who meets a Soviet guy, falls in love and marries him and moves to the USSR, against the opposition of her family and friends. Wish I could remember the name of the film.

I wonder if young kids today grasp how serious it was back then. I don't think they do. I'm not sure if they view Putin's regime the same way those of us old enough to remember the Cold War view it.

[Ottawa2011]

Found it... the film is Letter to Brezhnev (1985).

[travric]

Have to suggest that if if people didn't know much about the 'cold war' they got educated with Ukraine. It brought them up to speed. One thing about the 'cold war' is that it got its impetus with the capture of cold, hard territory. Mr. Putin and his predecessors arguably are great in ' bringing the past to life'. They live and love its nostalgia so much they just have to act to bring it back so as to embrace it again.

[Krokodill]

Cold war was evident on the west during the 80's as propaganda campaigns against "the war of the galaxies" and campaigns against nuclear plants.

[recycled]

I spent the mid 1970s in the US Army, stationed in what used to be West Germany for nearly 4 years. I was at Wildflecken Kaserne, about 12 kilometers west of the former inner German border and wall, just south of what was known as the Fulda Gap. I was also at McNair Barracks in the former West Berlin for nearly a year. The cold war was literally all around me for those years.

I drove countless times back and forth from West Berlin to West Germany through the former East Germany, with my military travel papers in English & Russian, stamped by US and USSR military police as I passed through checkpoints Alpha (at Helmstead) and Bravo (at the Dreilinden entrance to West Berlin). Unlike the citizens living in West Berlin, there were never any delays for allied military personnel going through the US and Soviet checkpoints. Civilian West Berliners were often subjected to hours long delays by East German Volkspolizei conducting intensive vehicle searches.

Many times, I went through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin wearing US military uniform, and visited many of the famous historical sights and museums in the former capital of East Germany. The post WW2 Potsdam agreement granted allied military forces in uniform access to all parts of Berlin. As part of the cold war psychological game, US military enlisted personnel (like I was) were often encouraged to visit East Berlin to show that we were able to freely walk around without any officers or political escorts and with no worry about us failing to return to our garrisons in West Berlin. It clearly irritated the local police and authorities in East Berlin, but they were not allowed to bother us as long as we did not do anything dumb or illegal. Wearing a US military uniform, walking around East Berlin in the mid 1970s was the ultimate cold war experience that I remember.

[Jakral]

What I remember specifically from the Cold War era in Norway - the later years of it in the early 1980s - was the high number of men who had full army gear and AG3 assault rifles at home. Unthinkable today. In my neighbourhood there was a father, son or brother in pretty much every other household ready for mobilization.

[Arigarisha]

I'd love to remember something about the cold war, but up 'til 1988 I was enjoying (For lack of a better word) my non-existence, the sweet absense of life surely must've been my golden time.

That is to say... I was born way too late for me to remember anything.

[Krokodill]

I remember that the USSR financed a sticker through "Green" organizations that received Soviet money. You could find that sticker everywhere Most of the funds ended in haschich or in proletarian festivities with lots of haschich. They also subsidised travels to proletarian paradises if you were related with the media.

[Ariete]

I remember the Berlin Wall coming down and the fall of the Soviet Union. My mom was on a work trip to Saint Petersburg and brought back some ruble bills. I still have them. And in 1st grade my school notebooks were filled with propaganda stickers for kids saying 'perestroika', 'glasnost' and 'solidarnosc'. And Lech Walesa I of course remember. That's pretty much it.