Under the Wall

In 1985, college student Ian Perkins reconnected with a family friend, Fritz Klenner, who told him a secret. He said he was a CIA agent — and offered to let Ian come along on his next mission. To listen early to Part 2 of this story, sign up for Criminal Plus at patreon.com/crimi ...  Show more

In 2021, a Nigerian man heard from a friend who offered him a job opportunity in the U.K. After he arrived he was taken to a hospital, where he found out that he wasn’t there for a job at all - but instead, for a kidney transplant. Today, Phoebe interviews journalist Alexis Okeow ...  Show more

How a young West German student helped East Berliners escape communism at the height of the Cold War. Volker Heinz told Robin Lustig how he worked with a Syrian diplomat to smuggle people across the Berlin Wall in the boot of the diplomat's car. From March to September 1966 the p ...  Show more

The Berlin Wall divided a country and a city, but it had a purpose. Learn more about its history and how JFK and Barack Obama fit into the picture in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

What would you do if you fell in love, but borders stopped you from being together? For some couples in East Berlin, the only options were to break up, end up in jail, be killed...or escape. In this episode we meet a mustachioed young East German, the American woman he falls in l ...  Show more

February 22, 1962. The city of Berlin is cut in half by a concrete and barbed wire wall. On the west side, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy is giving a rousing speech when suddenly, what look like balloons explode above the crowd, revealing Soviet-red flags. “The Communists w ...  Show more