iron curtain - Political, economic, and military realities, Origins of the Iron Curtain, Reactions
A term used to describe the separation of certain E and C European countries from the rest of Europe by the political and military domination of the Soviet Union. The term was first used by Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels in 1945 and quoted in translation by the British press. It became widely known after Churchill used it in a speech in Fulton, USA, in 1946. It became redundant following the collapse of the Soviet system in Eastern Europe.
The "Iron Curtain" is a term coined by Joseph Goebbels, and made famous by Winston Churchill, which refers to the boundary which symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, roughly 1945 to 1990.
Political, economic, and military realities
Northwest of the Iron Curtain
While the Iron Curtain was in place, certain countries of Eastern Europe and many in Central Europe (except West Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria) were under the political influence of the Soviet Union. Indeed the Central European states to the east of the Curtain were frequently regarded as being part of Eastern Europe, rather than Central Europe.
As an example, it became common in the West to refer to Czechoslovakia (now two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) as part of Eastern Europe. And much of the Physical Iron Curtain divided Czechoslovakia from Austria to the South.
The label of 'Eastern Europe' became a value or political judgement during the Cold War, and many people are offended by being described as Eastern Europeans.
Many of the states were members of the Soviet Union itself (the Soviet Socialist Republics), while, with two exceptions, the neighboring countries of the Eastern bloc were ruled by pro-Soviet governments, kept in place by the threat of military force.
To the east of the Iron Curtain, the states developed their own international economic and military alliances, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact.
West of the Iron Curtain
To the west of the Iron Curtain, the countries of Western Europe and Southern Europe, along with Austria, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, operated market economies.
Most states to the west of the Iron Curtain — with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Sweden, Finland and Ireland — were allied with the United States within NATO.
The Iron Curtain as a physical entity
The Iron Curtain took physical form in the shape of border defences between the countries of the western and eastern blocs. These were some of the most heavily militarised areas in the world, particularly the so-called "inner German border" — commonly known simply as die Grenze in German — between East and West Germany. The strip of land on the West German side of the barrier — between the actual borderline and the barrier — was readily accessible but only at considerable personal risk, as it was patrolled by both East and West German border guards.
For more on this topic, see the GDR border system article.
Elsewhere, the border defences between west and east were much lighter. The border between Hungary and neutral Austria, for instance, was marked by a simple chain-link fence which was easily removed when it became the first part of the Iron Curtain to be dismantled in 1989.
In parts of Czechoslovakia the border strip became hundreds of meters wide, and an area of increasing restrictions was defined as you approached the border.
The creation of these highly militarized no-man's lands lead to de facto nature reserves, and created a wildlife corridor across Europe;
The term "Iron Curtain" was only used for the fortified borders in central Europe; The border between North Korea and South Korea is very comparable to the former inner German border, particularly in its degree of militarisation, but it has never conventionally been considered part of the Iron Curtain.
Origins of the Iron Curtain
Wikisource has original text related to this article: Iron Curtain SpeechThe first recorded use of the term iron curtain was in 1819, in the general sense of "an impenetrable barrier". however, its use was popularized by the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who used it in his "Sinews of Peace" address March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri:
| From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron curtain" has descended across the Continent. |
After its fall, a section of the Berlin Wall was transported to and erected at Westminster College.
Reactions
At first, many countries in the West widely condemned the speech. cf (John Lewis Gaddis We Now Know 1997)"
Although the phrase was not well received at the time, as the Cold War strengthened it gained popularity as a short-hand reference to the division of Europe. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and the metaphor eventually enjoyed wide acceptance in the West.
In the Soviet Union, the speech was seen by Stalin as reinforcing his view that a future conflict with the West was inevitable.
Antagonism between East and West
The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that led to Churchill's speech had various origins.
The United Kingdom, France, Japan, Canada, the United States and many other countries had backed the White Russians against the Bolsheviks during the 1918–1920 Russian Civil War, and the fact hadn't been forgotten by the Soviets.
In the West, there was not only opposition to Soviet domination over the buffer states, but the fear grew that the Soviets were building an empire that might be a threat to them and their interests.
See also Cold War (1947-1953) and its origins
Earlier usages of the term
There are various earlier usages of the term "Iron Curtain" pre-dating Churchill. An iron curtain, or eisener Vorhang, was an obligatory precaution in all German theaters to prevent the possibility of fire from spreading from the stage to the rest of the theater.
On February 25, 1945 Joseph Goebbels wrote of an "iron curtain" in his weekly newspaper Das Reich:
| If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain [ein eiserner Vorhang] would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered. |
The first oral mention of an Iron Curtain was in a broadcast by Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk to the German people on May 2, 1945:
| In the East the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward. |
The first recorded occasion on which Churchill used the term "iron curtain" was in a May 12, 1945 telegram he sent to US President Harry S. Truman:
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An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. And then the curtain will descend again to a very large extent, if not entirely. 9)
Churchill repeated the words in a further telegram to Truman on June 4, 1945 in which he protested against such a US retreat to what was earlier designated as, and ultimately became, the US occupation zone, saying the military withdrawal would bring
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