Berlin–Divided City is a multimedia presentation suggesting the intense and often very dangerous role of the city during the Cold War. The talk draws on contemporary news resources, images and film records. In particular, attention is given to the Berlin Airlift, the Wall, the 1961 crisis and ways in which Berlin, as a Cold War flashpoint, affected international politics of the period. Richard will show, for example, how the Hungarian revolt in 1956 affected Berlin’s position and how the disastrous summits between the super-powers’ leaders seemed to be propelling the world towards new conflict.

 

Richard will endeavour to evoke some of the atmosphere of the time in question, drawing extensively on emotions expressed to him by people from all over the world who lived through the Cold War. Some examples in this talk include the feelings of native West Germans and the stories of a man who attempted an escape to the West by an unusual means, a little girl involved in the struggle, a father isolated from his family by the Wall and a British spy in East Berlin.

 

About the speaker – Richard Gibbons     

Brought up in a military family that had been heavily affected by World War II (his father had served for nineteen years until 1943 as a Royal Marine before being invalided out, and his sister and mother bombed were out of their home in Portsmouth in one of the Luftwaffe’s earliest raids on the city). He lived his first eighteen years just a stone’s throw from RAF Greenham Common. Hence his lifelong interest in modern military and political history. After Cambridge, he was a teacher/school leader in many comprehensive schools for 25 years, after which he became Education Officer in Cambridgeshire, where he worked on management and cyber issues, complaints and many critical incidents. Since 2000, he has developed his hobby of delivering multimedia presentations on modern history, and regularly speak to varied audiences.