Behind enemy lines in East Germany with a US Military Liaison Mission driver Part 1 (183)

Jun 18, 2021

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Tom Favia served with the USMLM, The US Military Liaison Mission which the Soviet Union permitted to operate in East Germany at the end of World War 2 for monitoring and furthering better relationships between the Soviet and Western occupation forces. The British & French also had missions in East Germany and the Soviets has theirs in West Germany.

Tom tells the amazing story of his recruitment from being an art student to being deployed “behind enemy lines” in East Germany. He also describes his earlier career on the Inner German border and then we move to his USMLM career. We hear about his driver training, planning procedures and the process for exiting West Berlin as well as details of the vehicles including the “James Bond switches”.

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I am delighted to welcome Tom Favia to our Cold War conversation…

There’s further information on this episode can be found here. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode183/

Part 2 is here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode185

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Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated – goodbye.

Radio GDR

If you are interested in East Germany we can highly recommend our friends over at Radio GDR.

0:00 Introduction and guest introduction

3:08 Journey of Tom Favia from art school to the US Army

9:56 Tom Favia's role on the inner German border and experiences

17:18 Arrival and first impressions of West Berlin and initial training

25:11 Changes to recruitment and training after the Nicholson incident

33:10 Operational and representational headquarters in East and West Berlin

39:30 Gathering information from the Soviets at parties

44:34 Procedures for a mission and crossing from West Berlin to East Germany

51:08 Navigation and target selection during Cold War