What It Was Like Living In Berlin During The Cold War Keystone/Getty Images
By S. Flannagan/Feb. 2, 2021 11:04 am EDT Berlin is the testicles of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin.
Thus spoke Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at a gathering in Yugoslavia in 1963, according to Alpha History. Khrushchev s metaphor, coarse as it may be, provides a vivid and memorable starting point for thinking about the German capital, which, after being ravaged by aerial bombardments and brutal street battles in the final months of World War II, was destined to serve as the nexus of yet another conflict that would continue to dominate the lives of Berliners for a large part of the 20th century.