Between 1945 and 1991, Europe was divided between two superpowers and their allies: US led NATO in Western Europe and USSR led Warsaw Pact in the East. The war was ‘cold’ because there was never a direct military engagement between them, due partly to the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides.
An introduction to the Cold War in Europe, which dominated the second half of the twentieth century.
This timeline breaks the Cold War down into a series of key dates.
A profile of the Berlin Wall which physically divided East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989.
Learn more about the Berlin Blockade of the US, UK and French zones of Berlin by the Soviet Union, intended to force negotiations over the division and future of Germany.
A guide to the origins of the Cold War in Europe.
An introduction to the Marshall Plan of economic aid to Europe.
This site has plenty of information on the Cold War, but it lies beneath the first screen, which is filled with the site’s strength: biographies of Cold War figures, and lots of them.
The Cold War International History Project archive contains a mass of official documentation on many different aspects of the Cold War. It’s too specialist for younger readers, but older ones may find something interesting.
