Bristol Hannover Council
(Cold) War Games: Scenarios on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
** On February 27 BHC members linked up with the German Historical Institute in London for a talk by Professor Maren Röger (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe) on (Cold) War Games: Scenarios on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain.
Germany was and remains to this day a country where games particularly board games are very popular. Games in West Germany were often played by all the family but In East Germany they were mainly designed to educate children.
During the Cold War these games took on a deeper ideological meaning. From the 1960s onwards in East Germany games of geography focused on Eastern Europe or the USSR, ignoring the West, or on local regions like Saxony.
Only in space games were East German children encouraged to expand their horizons.
Conversely in the West there was a spate of war games such as ‘Fulda Gap’ pitting the forces of democracy against a perceived attack from the Communist east. These games were often viewed unfavourably by the West German authorities as the country was on the front line and stood to suffer most in a nuclear conflagration.
Ironically, in East Germany where society was in other respects much more militarised, there were no war games because the authorities did not want people playing the capitalist West even in games!
Maren also discussed underground games, critical of the system, as well as the impact of the political thaw in the 1980s as games like Monopoly, previously banned, were now copied in parts of the East.
Members can access a recording on the GHIL podcast.
iAN TURNER, Chair
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