Cold War through the looking glass: Espionage objects, authenticity and multiperspectivity
Name
Cold_War_Through_the_Looking_Glass_24_11_12_17_47_16.pdf
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Size
2.35 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (CRC64NVME)
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Resource type
Book chapter
Creator (person)
Gledhill, Jim
Date published
2024
Abstract
This essay examines three museums interpreting the material culture of Cold War espionage in Berlin, a city synonymous with spies in fact and fiction: the Allied Museum, the Stasi Museum and the German Spy Museum. The Allied Museum displays an internationally significant artefact of western intelligence in a section of the secret tunnel built by the CIA and MI6 to tap Soviet military telephone lines in East Berlin. By contrast, the Stasi Museum in the organisation’s former headquarters in East Berlin exhibits original objects and interiors, reputedly as they were left in 1990. On the site of the Berlin Wall’s “death strip” at Leipziger Platz, the German Spy Museum contains the material culture of both sides, but also features former spies talking openly about their experiences. Each case study will consider the museological issues of authenticity and multiperspectivity when representing spies as controversial figures in Cold War history.
Project(s)
Materialising the Cold War
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Arts and Humanities Research Council | AH/V001078/1 |
Book title
Cold War Museology
Editor
Nehring, Holger
Douthwaite, Jessica
Alberti, S J M M
Pagination
95-110
Publisher
Routledge
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright
Additional information
Full text available via the official URL
Collection