The Cold War Era

FROM BROWN TO RED: “Hail to the Red Army Protectors of the New World” reads this Czech poster of 1945.

M-125 Fialka: Cold War-era Russian cipher machine

This was the flagship of the Hungarian People's Defence Force - Danube Flottilla. The picture was taken in 1980. Kiev-Class VTOL carrier. Russian sailor skateboarding of deck of the carrier. The photo shows the stand-off between U.S. Army M48 tanks and Soviet T55 tanks during the border dispute of late October 1961. The U.S. guardhouse is visible at the lower left corner (AP). A prototype of the Army's new atomic -capable Pershing missile during a demonstration of its easy air transportability at Rhine Main Air Force Base, Germany. TOW missile launcher designed to destroy tanks and other hard targets with a hollow-charge warhead. Through much of the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were mortal enemies engaged in a tense and dangerous stand-off. They hurled rhetoric in government chambers and over the airwaves, sent spies and spy planes into each other's territory, fought proxy wars, and most ominously, built sprawling nuclear arsenals with the capacity to destroy the other many times over. U-2 reconnaissance photograph of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Shown are the transports and tents for fuelling and maintenance. President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara in an EXCOMM meeting. A U.S. Air Force C-54 "Skymaster" coming in to land at Berlin's Templehoff Air Base is watched by a group of blockaded Berliners in 1948. The airlift was in operation for 15 months after the Soviet authorities halted all water and road t raffic into the city on June 26, 1948. West Berlin police hold back crowds of Germans coming from East Berlin for food and clothing in 1953.

The Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, picture most likely taken around 1962.

Photo: A. Schatz, Berlin, West-Germany.