w. david owen

The Cold War was a complex, high-stakes period in world history during which the slightest mistake by JFK or Khrushchev— or their underlings—had the potential to devastate millions of lives. A scary time, it was also a time of heroes, cowards, soldiers, and thieves. Cold War Crossroads follows the paths of four such individuals with their own stories and agendas.

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This work of historical fiction was set in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic during the peak Cold War period, 1961-1989. Tensions in Berlin were common in all sectors, underneath and over the Wall.The observant narrator detailed the respective Cold War experiences of an American soldier, an American government employee, an East German dissident engineer, and an East German worker. He befriended the four fictional characters through short visits and interviews over a three year period. 

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Author W. D. Owen is no stranger to this time of upheaval. He spent four years of his youth in West Germany during the Cold War. An accomplished German linguist and scholar of German defense policy, domestic politics, and culture, Owen lived in or visited both East and West German sites over a span of fifty years. He now fictionalizes the heartbreaks and horrors of a world split down the middle by war and hopes past mistakes are not repeated.