Cold War Road Trip. Destinations: Washington, DC – The American West – Outpost Berlin*

This lecture is part of the series "New Research on the Cold War".
Chair: Ulrich Mählert (Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dicatorship in Eastern Germany)

As the modern era's longest military face-off fades from personal recollection, a small fraction of the Cold War's vast physical legacy is gaining a new lease on life. High-priced tours of nuclear weapons facilities in the western United States and recently successful lobbying efforts by advocates of "atomic heritage" in Washington, D.C. are two among several signs that the buying and selling of the Cold War continues apace. What is the interpretative story telling implicit in the choice of sites, artifacts, and stories within the U.S.? And what can be said about the arena of contention where public memory and emotions, but also scholarly arguments collide with concerns over representation, community economic development, environmental issues, as well as a host of governmental regulations? Much like the bygone global ideological and military conflict, these battles are waged simultaneously on different continents, with protagonists often unaware of developments in other places. Thus American approaches to Cold War interpretation also cast their shadow in Berlin. The Cold War's cultural echo is therefore best understood not in regional or national terms, but rather from multiple international perspectives.

Keith R. Allen, Dr., is research scholar at the Department of History (University of Giessen).

The lecture series "New Research on the Cold War" is a joint project of the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Berlin Center for Cold War Studies.

*The lecture is in English.